


Come with me

by Melifera



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek Hale, Angst, BAMF Allison Argent, Cellist Stiles Stilinski, Character Death, Crying During Sex, F/M, Hurt Stiles, M/M, Mates, Mentioned Paige, Mildly Dubious Consent, Minor Vernon Boyd/Erica Reyes, Mpreg, Only by way of giving up when hunted, Out of Character, Partly shifted sex, Past Derek Hale/Paige, Past Kate Argent/Derek Hale, Quick Burn, Slight sucidal tendencies, Spark Stiles, Underage Sex, Versatile Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Warning: Kate is Kate, Werewolf Stiles Stilinski, one situational heat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 03:55:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20901245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melifera/pseuds/Melifera
Summary: Running can only take you so far when you're hunted.Sometimes running takes you right where you need to be.And sometimes it gives you things that shouldn't be possible, that you'd never dared hope for.But is anything really impossible with magic and love?-Derek stumbles into a cocktail bar where Stiles is a cellist. He's struck by him, love at first sight... sound maybe.He shouldn't stay, not with Kate right behind him but how could he leave?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this started with just a little idea while I was reading Coyote a manga. Obviously it does not follow it too far. Or at all. It was just the muse I guess. This is completely self satisfying and something to fiddle with while my baby naps but yeah. Have almost 30k of Stiles and Derek with Mpreg. 
> 
> Kate's Kate so beware for later chapters. This is completed, I will post the chapter as I edit them as best I can.

Bars and things weren't his usual go to, but it was freezing out or else he would have just braved the rain. Instead he ducked into the first open business and it just happened to be a cocktail bar. 

It was actually a rather nice place. Smaller, and quiet, not like a dive bar or club that would be blaring music. There was deep somber cello music playing and Derek immediately looked to the source of the rich dark sound.

He'd never seen live cello before. Usually it was piano wasn't it? Not that Derek was complaining. The deeper notes were soothing. 

A waitress seemed keenly interested in his attention but the cellist had it entirely. The young musician had his head tilted so sweetly, exposing mole dotted throat. For the first time in a long time a flash of arousal struck him. 

"Whatever's the special." Derek said gruffly knowing it was the best way to get her to go away and be able to stay and watch for a while while the rain was at its worst. 

It was hypnotic hearing the steady heart beat, and watching the fluid flow of his hand on the bow. Derek couldn't take his eyes off him and he knew he should get out of there. Bone weary, frozen exhaustion aside.

He was just stuck by his beauty. The way he played as if he and the cello were all that existed. Derek couldn't move for how much he wanted. 

When he was younger he always wondered what it would be like to meet his mate. His parents always just said he would know it when it happened. 

Twice he thought it did. 

With Paige it might have been true. He wanted her from the moment he saw her… and realized that she had played the cello too. It seemed his wolf had a type. Though he hadn't been as struck so deep with Paige. It was his first love and was only encouraged because she was the first person who didn't want him immediately. 

Still that want paled in comparison. 

Then there was Kate who dug her claws in so deep and twisted him around so fast he was sure after Paige she was the only one that could ever love him and had to be his mate. 

He should have ignored Kate the first time she flirted with him. He should ignore this man too. 

"Did you enjoy my playing?" A voice asked besides him and Derek hadn't even realized the music had stopped and the man moved besides him. He'd been lost in bad memories and self disgust. 

For a moment Derek sat there with his mouth open before clearing his throat and reaching for the beer that had been left for him when he was lost inside himself as well. 

"You were staring and it was hard to tell if it was because you were in awe or so annoyed you could snap the neck of my cello, and probably mine too." The whole of it was said with a joking flirtation that Derek wasn't used to anymore. He hadn't been the only one watching, the bar wasn't empty even if it wasn't bustling. But the man still came to talk to him.

"I… liked it." It had been beautiful. 

"Maybe it was me you were staring at?" He asked with a ridiculous wiggle of his brows. Derek felt his heart stutter anyways and his body flush hot. His gums itched to drop fang, control slipping in the face of _ want mine need _. 

"Sorry," he mumbled as he hurried up and out of the door. Even if he didn't shift at all he was bound to do something stupid, so he hurried and he left even if the rain was falling harder still. And he forgot to pay for his drink. 

That was why he came back the next night. To pay for the drink. If he was dressed in dry nice things he told himself it was only to respect what had to be a dress code. Didn't nice cocktail bars have expectations? 

"Your drink was paid for by Stiles." The waitress said, the same one from yesterday. She didn't seem so interested in Derek now that he had run out without paying. 

"When will he be in," Derek asked fingers tapping on the bar. He wasn't here for anything but to pay for his drink. One way or another. He certainly wasn't sticking around to see _ Stiles _ again. Not to breathe in that spiced honey of his scent. Not to feel warmed in places he thought had long been dead cold by Kate's hand. 

Definitely not. 

Except the waitress, Anne, looked right through him like she knew exactly what he was about. "At 6." She answered and Derek knew she was only telling him because the live music schedule was on a little card stand by the bowl for tips for Stiles. Something Derek noticed later when he hovered near it and Stiles chair waiting. 

He absolutely did not memorize the schedule. Tonight would be the last time he was here. In fact maybe Derek would pick up and move again. He'd been here a few weeks already. Staying in one place too long gave Kate too much chance to catch up. 

She was always catching up. 

Derek just couldn't help the hesitation he felt about leaving. He wanted to stay, put down roots. It wasn't the biggest city he'd tried to hide in but it had been almost a year since the last time Kate had found him. Maybe she'd found better amusement? Derek was getting a lot older than she preferred him after all. 

For a werewolf he was not doing a very good job, of Stiles could get right besides him without him even noticing. 

Or maybe there was no reason to be alert with Stiles to be pulled out of his thoughts before he was in Derek's space. 

"Thought I scared you off. Though that can't have been the first time a man flirted with you, not when you look like you look, Eros." Stiles smiled another wiggle of his brows and a whiff of sexual arousal coming off him. 

"I came to pay for my drink." Stiles seemed absolutely delighted by his answer. 

"Well that'd be $6.75, Eros. How about you buy me a drink to return the favor?" It was almost more temptation than Derek could take. He wanted so badly to say yes, take Stiles for a drink, take him to bed… but it would kill him, and Derek didn't think he would survive if one more person died just because he wanted them. 

He took the ten from his wallet and tucked it into the tip bowl before hurrying out. 

Derek spent the rest of that night and the following two days packing up, finding some reason he couldn't leave just yet, unpacking and repacking in a cycle before he found himself back in the bar when Stiles was meant to be playing. 

It was the stupidest, most selfish thing that he'd done in a while. The only reasoning he could give was that the full moon was tonight and with how badly he reacted to Stiles and the precarious nature of an Alpha without a pack he was worried if he tried to leave now he'd lose control and end up right back here anyways. 

Feed the beast a little to keep it tame or whatever. 

Stiles was playing something he actually recognized this time. Something Bach, a cello suite, pretty much the thing anyone could name for Stiles to play. It was probably a request. Not that Stiles played it any less beautiful than any other piece. His head was bent a little as he played long slender fingers moving over the neck of his cello, bow moving fluidly. Derek moved to the bar to grab a drink and then move to the furthest darkest corner the bar had to offer. 

He didn't want Stiles to see him, and flirt again. Not tonight when his skin already felt oddly tight, and he was far too warm. It was like the pull of the moon but driven by need for Stiles and sitting just sitting as far as possible had him breathing a little ragged. Stiles sweated a little from all the movement in that suit of his and it filled the room with his scent and it drove Derek crazy.

He'd been half hard since he started walking the path to the bar, and now hidden in his booth he was fully erect under the table and sweating himself. Derek could feel it at the small of his back. 

Anne had seen him when he ordered at the bar and when Stiles stood a few pieces later to get a water for himself at the bar Derek heard her speaking. 

"Your mystery crush is here hiding like a stalker in the back booth." Anne told him dryly. She obviously wasn't very fond of him. He didn't blame her, not when he had ignored her interest, left without paying and came back for her friend all looking like as he was reliably told 'a fucking serial killer'. 

Stiles immediately smelled like arousal and Derek dug his claws under the bench if his booth, his other hand tightening in the drink he hadn't touched that was now mostly water from the melting ice. 

_'She'll kill him,' _he reminded himself carefully. The last time he had gotten close to a human, someone easy for Kate to reach, Kate had strung him up in their shared apartment, that Derek had been renting from him leaving him dead and mutilated for Derek to find. 

Derek had only barely made it out of the apartment before Kate got him too. 

He didn't rent rooms from people anymore. 

Didn't use hotels because no matter what the beds always smelled like the last five people that had used them. 

Currently he was living in what had been an abandoned boxing gym. All the equipment moved out except the built in ring. The water worked even if the electricity didn't. It meant cold showers but it was better than no shower. 

He really wanted a cold shower right then. 

Stiles was already moving towards his table and while the booth was good for hiding in if no one ratted him out, it was not a good escape point. The only way out was passed Stiles. 

Derek swallowed thickly and tried his damnedest to will away the heat that felt like it was blistering under his skin. He didn't get what this was, what was happening, even for a full moon, it was a strange reaction. 

"You're a weird guy, you know, Eros? You show up, I flirt, you run away and come back to repeat the process. If you're closeted, that's cool, I can be a little more discreet if you just say something. We can just be two men, talking about music. Maybe you're looking for a private performance?" He restrained himself from wiggling his brows again but that didn't make his attempts at seduction any less obvious to anyone passing by if they looked at the body language. 

Or could smell Stiles. 

The want was thick and cloying. Derek tried to breathe through his mouth so he couldn't smell it but it was like he could _ taste _ it and that was so much worse. 

"I- I'm not…." Derek didn't even know what he was trying to say because he very clearly _ was. _He wasn't sure if he could say he was gay. Maybe he couldn't stand touching another woman in practice but in theory it was something he always liked. 

And he liked Stiles. Well wanted. Wanted was the best phrase for it. He didn't know Stiles he might hate him, he could turn out to be like every other psycho he somehow got caught up in. But Derek wanted him so badly he was burning for it. 

"Come on big guy, I'm off at 11. So why don't you figure yourself out and when I get off if you want that private performance, well, I live upstairs." Stiles winked, tried to wink maybe? It looked maybe like a facial spasm but Derek was still caught by it. 

So caught that come 11 he was practically panting, nails looking like they needed a trim but not nearing full out claws. Derek was sure the rest of him was under control enough. He hadn't felt this way since puberty.

Stiles put his cello away in a hard shell case lined in red velvet and then slung it over his back and damn. Derek thought he looked a little skinny but obviously under the lines of that suit there was strength. A full size cello had to be heavy. 

Derek already knew he was going to follow Stiles upstairs. His life was full of bad decisions, the first moment he scented Stiles it was inevitable that he was going to make this one too. 

But he would leave after this was over. After the full moon. After this heat beneath his skin tapered off. It was one thing to stay and sleep with Stiles it was another to stay _ with _Stiles. The city was clear if hunters so far, so tonight shouldn't hurt anyone, but tomorrow. Tomorrow he had to leave before hunters did show up and hurt Stiles to hurt him. 

Kate did love to kill the people Derek liked. Roommates, cashier's that he was friendly with, if he got close enough Kate killed them. Derek was pretty sure she was waiting until she killed enough Derek finally came crawling to her, begging her to kill him. 

Derek was really starting to consider it. Wolf instincts were hard to fight though and the wolf was all about pack preservation and surviving. 

Even if Derek didn't have a pack he still had his life. Even if the more human parts of his thinking weren't really believing it was a life worth anything anymore. 

Stiles nodded his head and Derek and he got up, scrambling to leave a couple twenties on the table since he occupied it for hours and only ordered one drink. 

Stiles met him outside and led him around to the side alley of the building. There was a pretty heavy door there that Stiles used two separate keys in two deadbolts to get open. 

"The owner of the bar owns this building and let me take this loft up here if I restored it. Which was hard because I knew jack shit about shit but YouTube is a hell of a drug." Stiles laughed brightly and explained how he didn't have to pay rent for fixing the place up. Since the owner could charge rent out the ass next tenant that came through with all the renovations. 

It was a nice place. It wasn't huge the floor space was wide open like, wide open. The downstairs was only split by a kitchen island and there was a staircase to a loft upstairs that had a bed and a folding screen that separated the 'bathroom'. 

"I've been meaning to close that in, you know? But it's really different replacing some drywall, and putting up two complete walls." Derek just nodded and kept staring up at the loft, up at the bed with it's unmade sheets that Derek could smell from here. 

Stiles had cum on them probably this morning and he hadn't even changed them. Derek felt like his heart was going to explode and it was a real feat to keep his breaths even and not hang open his mouth like a dog and pant. 

"So… do you want that private show or a more in depth tour of upstairs?" Derek could see the upstairs, see that it was literally just the bedroom and bathroom, but he still nodded. 

Stiles set his case down gently and then too him by the hand over to the stairs. There was a more beat up well used cello on a stand next to a music stand with sheet music under the big windows. A practice one Derek guessed since the one he played downstairs was sleek and expensive looking. 

"Have you done this before? I mean you look a little freaked. We don't have to do anything. We could just sit here and talk if that's what you want. I mean I wanted to go down on you, maybe eat you out, maybe fuck you. If that's what you're into, you look like you might top, and I'm good with that-" Derek couldn't take anymore and just lunged. He grabbed Stiles up desperately and kissed him with everything that he had. All the hunger and loneliness, that biting need. 

"Fuck me, just fuck me " Derek panted, kissing him harder and Stiles who had been a little still in surprise at first fell into Derek with enthusiasm. 

Stiles never shut up. Derek had thought maybe he was babbling a little because it was awkward having a stranger in his loft so he just explained things to fill the silence.

Derek was starting to think that that was just who Stiles was. He babbled right through dirty talk too. Through fingering Derek open and grabbing a condom that Derek snatched and threw away with a most definitely clawed hand. The sight of it startled him so badly that he pushed away as best he could from under Stiles to curl up into a ball to try and hide his face and hands. 

There was finally silence on Stiles' end. Derek should have know that wolfing out was inevitable on a full moon. Any moment now, there would be screaming. Shouting. He was going to be chased out of here while he was burning and desperate to just feel _ Stiles _. 

Derek couldn't even help the needy, lonely sob. For so long he had been so alone and it was unnatural, unhealthy for an Alpha. Any day now he was going to snap, go crazy, go feral. Or just go to Kate. 

Except he ran into Stiles and he just wanted to belong with him even for just a little while, wanted to calm the burning under his skin. 

"Shush." Stiles said, as he ran a hand up Derek's flank trying to _ soothe _ him. It only made him choke on another ugly sob. Was he that pathetic that his shifted form couldn't even properly terrify anyone? 

"Babe, just breathe alright? It's okay. I was just startled, okay? So you're a werewolf huh? That's right, I know about them, one came into my home town once. An omega all feral and stuff. You don't have to hide." For a minute Derek was afraid Stiles was a hunter. Humans who knew always always turned out to be hunters in his life. Or not human at all like Jennifer. 

But it was Stiles. The man he knew not at all and yet wanted and inexplicably trusted. Derek couldn't believe he was a hunter at all. Especially not when he looked at Stiles and saw how absolutely soft he was. Nothing about it seemed fake. He was concerned about Derek and his meltdown. 

And flaccid which made Derek whine in distress. Even being horrified at his shift and outing himself and _ crying _ he hadn't gone soft at all, and he was hot and wet between his cheeks and he wanted to be fucked even now. It felt long past want though. 

"Please," Derek whined, reaching out for Stiles with clawed, but gentle hands. The crying had stopped, thank God, but he was still every bit desperate and lonely. 

Stiles went even softer and let himself be pulled in, their lips meeting as best they could with the fangs. With a bit of slow patience Stiles even managed to deepen this kiss and when he finally pulled back he was hard again and Derek was so relieved. 

"Sure you want this big guy? You uh haven't even told me your name." Derek just tilted his hips up, lubed ass slicking against Stiles cock. Stiles looked like he wanted to say something about the obvious dismissal of proper introductions but decided giving the needy werewolf exactly what he wanted was more important right then. 

Stiles figured there would be time later to ask what his name was. 

He didn't count on Derek sucking him off until he was hard to go a second round and then a third, riding him for all he was worth until he was passed out cold. 

He probably shouldn't have been surprised when he woke up the next morning and Derek wasn't there. Stiles was surprised by the note though. 

_ Don't tell anyone you met me, it'll hurt you. Sorry. _


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paige and Kate are discussed along with the fire.

Derek left.

He made it a whole state over, picked a town to rest for a while, made it six days before the next full moon when he started feeling sick. 

At first he was so so cold, nothing he did warmed him enough, and then the shaking came. When he threw up it was clear of black ick, but it was acidic and he wanted it to stop. God he wanted it to stop.

He did something he hadn't done in a long time, and searched out magic. It had a specific scent, that was partly the accumulation of the herbs they surrounded themselves with. 

Usually they were hidden fairly well. They knew how to blend. He never really interacted with his mother's druid because he had been a child and didn't belong in those kinds of meetings, but Alan Deaton had been the last person anyone might suspect. Other than the fact he worked with nature in the form of being a local vet. 

The one he was able to sniff out a day and a half later, feeling pale and cramping fiercely was probably the most obvious fucker in the world. 

They were set up in a new age shop for fucks sake. Green Goddess was a mix of garden nursery and magic shop. The ones full of crystals and star charts. 

Derek would have walked right out if he didn't hurt so bad and didn't catch that scent that was like ozone when thunder struck. The scent he always associated with magic. Though he was starting to be afraid he found a hedgewitch and not someone with deep knowledge especially of werewolves that was going to be able to help him. 

"Hello?" Derek called, his voice gruff with the vomiting he'd just done in the alley around the side and disuse. 

After what felt like a stupidly long while for a witch or druid or whatever she was to come investigate the supernatural creature walking into her shop a young woman around his age came walking out of the back. 

_Hippie_ was his first thought. Like long skirt, upcycled cut up top, hair a braided mess kind of hippie that faintly smelled like weed, _hippie_. 

Derek was pretty sure if he was dying this woman wasn't going to be able to do shit for him. 

"You're kind of rude when you're sick you know that?" She asked with a pleasant smile. Derek just narrowed his eyes at her. Maybe even worse than a hippie hedgewitch was a fucking mind reading one.

"Will you just help me? I'll pay you." He had a lot of money to his name. He was always going to inherit a trust on his twenty first birthday. Now he had his, his sisters, his parents wealth, life insurances…. He had a lot. And he rarely ever used it. Out of guilt and because Kate seemed to find him faster when he did. But he wasn't so suicidal yet to just die. Wolves were stubborn survivalists. 

She waved him into the back with her and Derek followed. Even if the stink of weed made him want to sneeze. 

"You're right that I don't know too much about werewolves. You all don't come here much, but I do know that I can't fix you. Even an idiot should recognize separation sickness. Go back to your mate and you're going to be fine, alright?" She said it very dismissively as she moved to her work table. She dumped some herbs in a mesh ball and dropped it into a tea cup. 

The cue to leave was very clear. Derek… he had suspected alright, but no one ever said separation sickness was going to hurt so bad. 

"I can't go back." Derek said through gritted teeth as another cramp took him. Going back was killing his mate. If he went back and he stayed Kate would kill him like she had everyone else. 

"Of course you can go back, it's your mate dum-dum. I'm not going to get inside your head and find all your reasons but you're a wolf and you obviously had sex already or else you wouldn't be all sickly so just go back, solidify the bond and live happily ever after without being sick every time you have to take a solo trip, okay?" It was very much not okay but at least she wasn't invading his privacy with her mind reading. Derek just growled and when that made him nauseous clicked his teeth together not to puke again. 

If he went back he wouldn't be sick. But if he went back Kate would get him. 

But if he didn't go back he would never see his mate again and Derek whined at that thought. He had no one. No family, no friends, but he had a mate and he was going to run away from that? 

The wild baser parts of him were ready to kill the rational mind and go back. The witch looked up at him and held the cup out. 

"Drink this so you don't lose your mind on the trip back and get put down, but then you know, get out. I was about to have lunch and a wild Alpha is not the lunch date I had planned." As most witches - magic users in general she was infuriating even if it was her own special brand of it.

Derek took the cup she offered and let the scent waft to him. It didn't smell poisonous so he downed it, and nearly hurled it right back up because it was like drinking frogspawn or ditch water. It did absolutely nothing for the sickness… but something did ease inside him. He hadn't even realized how unsettled and out of his skin he felt until part of him was more grounded again. Without pack he was untethered, and slipping. It was startling to feel so… normal. He hadn't even realized how close to feral he was going until he was pulled back some. 

"Thanks." Derek said in more of a grumble before he turned around and left. He had to stop at the warehouse he'd stashed his stuff, but he didn't stay there. 

As much as he thought giving up would be so much easier, Derek didn't actually want to go feral. After meeting Stiles… he was hesitant to give in. He'd been just about ready for it and now he just couldn't.

What he was supposed to do once he got back to Stiles he didn't know. Stiles was probably pissed or… just indifferent about his hook up taking off. 

How was he supposed to convince him to run away and stay running away for the rest of their lives? 

It kind of sucked that the first guy that Stiles had been interested in took up and left and didn't come back. 

Sure he saw hot people all the time, but none that looked at him the way Eros had looked at him from the very first time that he saw Stiles. 

It was such a deep longing sorrowful, yet lustful look. It was a rollercoasters of emotions and all it had done was make Stiles want to be good to him, and yeah of course have his dirty dirty way with him. 

Or judging by the sex crazed wolf that had drained his brain out through his cock, let Eros have his dirty dirty way with him. 

Power bottoms were so his thing anyways. 

But it had been nearly a whole freaking month and Eros hadn't shown up at all. He thought they had had this like magnetic connection. Couldn't keep away even if they wanted to. 

With the way Eros had come back and run off it seemed pretty accurate. Fuck. Even Stiles had been waiting around for him, if he knew where to see him other than the bar, he would have been there. 

They only had Black Ivy and the loft upstairs. 

Stiles didn't even know his name. How was he agonizing and pining after a guy whose name he didn't know? Who he had fucked one time? This had to be worse than the Lydia Martin incident. This was his new low. 

Even Anne at the bar was making fun of him. She still thought Eros was an asshole. Stiles was pretty sure he just didn't get the whole human interaction thing very well. He didn't know much about wolves seeing as the extent of his real life experience boiled down to that very bad no good three weeks that Beacon Hills was terrorized. 

The hunters that had taken care of the omega hadn't even explained very well. They got the bare minimum and the cover story as to why Scott had a fucked up abdomen scars from field stitching after the omega stumbled on them. 

The internet had told him some but he didn't have someone to confirm the true and false of the startling amount of info. 

Still. It seemed like Eros hadn't gotten a lot of human time in. That was all. He was a little gruff but not really an asshole. He tipped Anne great. Though she just huffed and rolled her eyes about people throwing money at their problems. 

He didn't really care what she thought though. He just wanted to see Eros again. To learn his real name. 

To stop composing melancholic pieces over his beautiful pale eyes. 

Stiles dragged the bow across a sonorous note and sighed. He should be composing ballads to that fine fine ass. 

Instead he played sad music and moped. 

The worn faint sound of the doorbell desperately in need of replacing shook him from his thoughts. Quickly Stiles scribbled on the sheet music the next few notes that he had decided on and then set Stella- his practice, and very first cello in her stand before going down to answer it. 

An eBay package he was waiting on that was supposed to have a very detailed very real bestiary was not what was waiting for him like he expected. Stiles had thrown open the door looking down on his little stoop for a package only to find boots. 

Connected to denim clad legs, connected to a lean waist, connected to broad muscled shoulders- holy hell, Stiles was looking at Eros again. 

For about five seconds before Eros was darting in for him, wrapping strong arms around his middle and crushing his face into Stiles neck. 

There was a fine trembling all along Eros' body and after a moment of shock Stiles held him back. 

"Shush, hey, it's okay. Everything's ok, Eros." Stiles had no idea if it was true but right then everything felt okay, even if his heart was beating wildly just holding Eros in his doorway. 

"Derek," he mumbled into Stiles skin, and Stiles was lucky to make it out with how mushed in there Derek was. 

"Nice to meet you, Derek. I take it from the crushing hug and first name basis you're not running off right after this?" Stiles was getting tired of his running. After a while, a guy had to start taking that stuff personal. 

There was a hefty sigh but no answer just then. Derek did crowd them through the doorway, bumping Stiles elbow with the way Derek had his arms pushed out to hug him. Stiles hooked the edge of the door and threw it to get it shut. 

Derek seemed to relax with them closed up in private. Even in Stiles tiny little stairwell that smelled just a little like mildew. He was still working on fixing up the loft, alright? 

"We can't stay here, we should leave tomorrow night." The 'we's' were thrilling okay, Stiles was embarrassed to admit how absolutely distracting that one little word was from the rest of what Derek just said. 

"Uh, leave to where big guy because if you hadn't noticed I'm a little rooted here. Got a job, a loft, cellos." Stiles absolutely was not leaving Stella and Lady. 

Derek pulled back and Stiles realized that he was pretty pale, with dark circles under those wondrous eyes. The murder brows and dagger eyes were unchanged. 

"It's not safe." Was all Derek seemed to want to say on the subject, as if Stiles were not Stiles master of a thousand questions that absolutely needed fucking answers. 

He reached behind him to grab Derek's hands to pry them loose. Derek let it happen and Stiles lead him upstairs to his beat up yet very plush comfortable couch. Yet another reason Stiles couldn't just run off. He had lovingly selected second hand furniture here he couldn't abandon. 

"You're going to have to be specific about that. I'm not just going to run off with some guy I hardly know because he says so. Like yes you are hotter than hot like hot like I could fry an egg on your chest, but like- I'm not seventeen anymore. If you wanted me to be all 'yes let's go off into the sunset' that was probably the age to-"

"You're my mate, " and Derek looked very pained to say that. Or pained from the rambling. Who could tell when he looked generally sick anyways? 

Now Stiles admitted he didn't know much about werewolves but he had so read stuff about mates. The stuff that wasn't weird furry porn he understood like soulmates. It was a deep connection inside that affected them physically. A bonded wolf would be able to feel their mate wherever they were beyond the range of scent and hearing. 

The connection was a lifelong thing. There was no reversing it, or breaking it until someone died. 

Stiles was sure there was more to it but that little bit was enough to know this was Serious. Capital 's' serious.

"I'm your mate. Okay. Does not explain the needing to abandon my life and my inconvenient to move, well loved belongings." Stiles pouted. Being mates? Yeah he could deal what that. It wasn't even really dealing when he was ready to wiggle out of his seat in excitement because holy hell he was wolf married to a super hot dude. Leaving his life behind was not something Stiles especially wanted to deal with. 

Derek looked either pained or constipated with having to use his words, to explain this in a way Stiles would be satisfied with. 

"I- don't have a pack. I wasn't supposed to be the Alpha, but hunters… a hunter she killed them, and she - " Derek stopped to take a deep breath, knowing he had to say it all. The whole of it. The things he never told anyone and no one was left to care about. Before his mate. 

"When I was fourteen, freshman year I fell in love with a human girl. My uncle was trying to convince me that to be together she needed to turn. I hadn't made a decision yet but Peter did it for me. An Alpha came to turn her, and attacked us. The bite rejected and I killed her before she could die slowly in agony-"

"_Jesus_ Derek-"

"Let me finish. If I don't say it all now I won't say it." Derek insisted taking Stiles by the hands and trying very hard not to look at his face. 

"The next year I was disgusted with myself and… hurting. I was pulling away from the pack and they let me. I wasn't just any beta I was a son too and they were trying to give me space to heal and come to them. I didn't…. I met a woman, a teacher when I was sixteen. She came to sub and she started taking an interest in me. I was craving it I didn't even know it I thought I just wanted to be left alone.

"Eventually I thought she loved me and I loved her. I didn't think I could ever be loved again. I mean- my eyes were blue and everyone knows that meant I killed an innocent. I wanted to be with her so badly I told her everything. What I am, what I did. I told her about my family, my pack the house, the tunnels under it. 

Derek took a shuddering breath and Stiles leaned into him. It helped more than Derek expected, loosening the lump in his throat. 

"I didn't know she was a Hunter until I was coming home and could smell the smoke. When I got to my house it was burning up, and they were- were screaming still. I could hear it but I couldn't get inside. She put mountain ash down. It trapped them inside and me out. I couldn't help them I wanted to help them so badly. I wanted -

"Take a breath, Der. It's okay, I'm right here." Stiles tried to comfort him. Derek was starting to shift with how upset he was having to say all this. He hadn't thought he would ever have to talk about it. Eventually Derek could continue without the claws and fangs. Though his eyes stayed that dazzling red. 

"She shot me as I was probably on the way to killing myself, throwing myself against the barrier again and again trying to get through. That's how I figured it out. When I turned and she was holding a crossbow, smelling like wolfsbane and laughing at me. 

" 'Be a good puppy and play dead' she said, and I was so shocked that I might have dropped right there and let her shoot again. Except right then was when they stopped screaming. All of them. I got the Alpha spark because I was all that was left. 

"That kind of surge in power, in just that moment I was unstoppable, indestructible. I was in overdrive and even the wolfsbane was burning up too fast to affect me. I remember lunging for K- Kate. Kate Argent. I guess she had back up because the next thing I do remember is licking the last of my closing wounds deep in the preserve. 

"I've been running ever since but she always catches up, she always finds me, and she hurts the people around me. I left so that wouldn't happen to you but you're my mate. I had to come back. "

For a long while Stiles was silent which was probably a real feat considering he still had a lot of questions but that was a hell of a lot to process. 

A lot, a lot. He could see why Derek wanted them to run but. What kind of life was that? They were supposed to be soulmates and they were meant to spend their time together on the run for the rest of their lives? Always afraid, always looking over their shoulder, literally hunted. 

That was not how Stiles imagined his life when he was settling down and getting serious about someone. Living in a loft above a cocktail bar also wasn't the plan either but at least it was stable. 

"She manipulated you, raped you- and it was rape don't make that face, men get raped. You were sixteen, and she was your teacher. She used you to get to your family, and kill them. Why didn't you tell the police?" Yeah the whole supernatural stuff probably wouldn't go over well but the real by the law crimes? Statutory rape, murder? That was something the police could work with. If Kate Argent wanted to start spouting off about werewolves when she was arrested that was between her and the psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane she ended up in. 

Derek just sighed tiredly, pulling Stiles close and trying his best to curl up with him on Stiles' couch. 

"She wasn't alone in town. I didn't know how many there were, who they were. Hunters have a long history of being ex-military and part of the police force. Or at least paying them off. All my family was dead and instinct said run so I ran. Kate keeps finding me." Back then he hadn't even known hunters were in town. He was just a kid. Other than some cautionary lessons much like humans got to avoid strangers and stuff his parents didn't tell him about the bad stuff. 

He did know Kate said she was living with her brother and his wife when she had been in town. He remembered her saying just before the fire that her dad had come down. It was close to Thanksgiving break so Derek had just smiled and talked about how nice it was her family was all coming. She had laughed. 

Now that he knew her last name was Argent he knew that made four hunters that were in town at the time, and the Argent's were an old established family so undoubtedly they had more soldiers. 

The whole town could have been crawling with them and Derek would have never known because he was young and dumb. 

"The hunters I met, they said they had a code. Something about hunting the hunters. Like the Omega who attacked me and my friend. Maybe there's hunters out there that … that police the other hunters? This can't just be a fucking free for all." Maybe it wasn't a structured government but if hunters wanted to play at being the good guys someone had to be enforcing that?

Derek looked at him and Stiles knew he was being naive. 

"Some families police themselves. The Argent code is 'we hunt those who hunt us'. That doesn't have to mean creatures that have already killed a human. Just by existing as a werewolf, were something that by their definition is a predator. Eventually we will hunt them, so why not preemptively strike? I remember hearing about the Argent's but my mom always said I didn't need to worry. They don't kill kids, but that was a lie." That night Cora had been inside, Gabriel and George too. The boys were two and five and Cora had only been nine. Certainly not adults. 

Stiles looked so pale at that admission like he hadn't thought babies could have been inside. Derek whined and tucked him close. The sickness had abated but he was still so cold. Or maybe this was just how humans felt? His and Stiles skin felt the same against each other. 

He didn't know separation sickness could do that. Though Derek didn't know as much as he probably should about his own kind. His parents were waiting till he was eighteen to talk to him about a lot of it. Things like mates and hunters and pack practices. He barely knew how to interact with other packs and that wasn't as an Alpha. 

Not that he had to interact with any. He'd been hiding from them as much as he had Kate. They would want to help him, some of them at least out of respect for his mother and Derek knew he'd only get them killed. 

"We can't run forever, Derek. What kind of life is that having nothing, no real home? I mean I don't necessarily want them right this second but eventually I want kids." He didn't want to be working in a cocktail bar basically part time, living in a kind of run down loft. 

Stiles had come out here for college, had started cello as a sort of music therapy after an unfortunate incident when he got over stressed. It wasn't supposed to be how he was feeding himself but he'd got offered a truly amazing position from his internship with a tech company right out of college… and when that tanked he had been too stubborn to run home to his dad but… he had been really thinking about going home to Beacon Hills and following his dad's footsteps. 

"Maybe we should go, but not on the run you know? We could go to my home town, my dad is the Sheriff of Beacon County California, Beacon Hills. He could help us figure this out-" Stiles cut off when Derek whined. It was such an upset sound. 

"I'm just so cold and tired. Please." He didn't want to do this right now. He wanted to go to bed, sleep off the cold with Stiles heat helping him keep warm under those soft blankets Stiles had all over his bed. 

Stiles gave into him immediately. Though he knew the discussion wasn't over. At least he was reasonably sure Kate wasn't going to catch up to him in the next couple of days. The wild backtracking he did if she was following closely behind should confuse her a little. He had never gone back before. 

Derek followed as Stiles took him up the stairs to his bedroom loft. He let Stiles tug him out of most of his clothes, except his boxer briefs and shirt before they both curled up in bed. It was the most comfort Derek had had … in years. 

"Go to sleep, I won't go anywhere." Stiles assured him and Derek did. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter is another reason I tagged dubious consent just to be safe. They enter the mate bond while Derek's a little frantic.

He woke up a whole day later, the day of the full moon absolutely on fire. Everything was too hot and not enough. It was like that first night they had sex only worse. He was hot and God his ass was soaking. If it wasn't so slick Derek would be terrified he either pissed or was just profusely sweating excessively from his ass crack. 

Stiles startled from where he was perched on the desk near the bed having been working in something. He left the bed but he never left the loft. As promised. 

Derek kicked and clawed at himself until he could get the bedding off him and tear his clothes away. He wasn't really thinking- couldn't really think beyond _mate_, _need_, _want_, _mate_. 

He whined and dragged Stiles into the bed giving his clothes similar treatment to his own until he was naked under Derek. 

"Fuck me. Please, I- god I need it, _mate_." Derek pleaded as he threw a leg over Stiles to straddle his waist and rub slick cheeks against Stiles half hard cock. Though it was quickly catching on to what was what. Even if Stiles himself still looked completely confused and concerned. 

"Where did you get lube?" Stiles voice was pitched a little high before breaking with a moan and then a groan of utter disbelief. "Oh god that's coming out of your ass, that's slick? How is that slick? Are you- fuck- are you in like some kind of heat right now?" 

Derek didn't answer, just reached between them to grip Stiles cock and slide down on it. 

Stiles didn't seem to care about answers anymore just then. 

Not that Derek could give them. Even if he could string his thoughts together well enough to voice them he had no clue. Heats were something adult female born wolves went through. Just like knots were something born male wolves had to deal with if they entirely let go during sex. 

Maybe his body was freaking out from the mate separation sickness and making Derek's body do weird things to seal the bond immediately. 

That sounded right maybe, in his head that was boiling over with pure need for Stiles to come in him, and bite him. He had recognized Stiles as a mate enough to burn for him last full moon and run away. Derek's body wasn't going to let him get away again. 

He rode Stiles hard and fast, his shift out and an odd growling moan working out of his throat. 

"Bite! _Bite_ me," Derek urged, head throwing back and to the side to expose the perfect spot for it. He knew where the bite belonged, having seen the faint silvery scars on his parents from their mating. 

Stiles looked like that was the last thing he wanted to do but Derek gripped him by the hair just a little less than gently and dragged him up and to the juncture of shoulder and neck. 

The first bite was timid and Derek growled and demanded a mark. Stiles let out an odd sound between giving up and freaking out and bit so hard Derek's skin tore and he started to cum. 

Stiles pulled back fast away from the copper taste of blood on his tongue. Derek took the space between them as his own chance to dart in and bite. 

There were two kinds of magic in a bite. One only an alpha had and one every wolf did. Derek wasn't sure exactly how or why when an alpha bit the intention of the bite changed anything when any other time a deep enough wound from an alpha to a human would always change them. Or kill them. 

But Derek had bit to mate and he knew instinctively there was no fear of rejection because Stiles wouldn't be a wolf after this. He would be Stiles. Derek's bonded mate. 

When the first taste of blood hit his tongue something snapped into place. 

Even Stiles could feel it and the startling mix of them, the echo of their pleasure together, especially Derek's heightened by the burning in his veins had Stiles forget all about the pain, and cumming too. 

Derek pulled back from his mates skin and marveled at the perfect marks. They weren't very deep. Enough to bleed and scar. He darted in again to lap at them, and in only a few licks they weren't actively bleeding at all. 

His own mark had healed over into white scars. Not much would leave a mark on a wolf but mating would. Even with a human. 

Stiles flopped back in the bed and Derek fell besides him. Stiles was softening in him so Derek didn't mind moving off his mates cock. The fire in him calmed some but it was still sizzling. He was in no way done, but he was calmed enough to wait. 

All of a sudden Stiles started to laugh, sitting back up in bed. 

"Dude. That was like, three minutes tops. I haven't cum in three minutes since I was in highschool." Stiles laughed and then winced a little. Carefully he reached up to poke at his mating bite. 

It was tender but it didn't hurt like he might expect a werewolf bite to be. For some reason he just knew he didn't have to worry about turning into a wolf. 

Wolves were cool and everything, and he wouldn't ask Derek to be anything different but Stiles kind of liked being human. 

Derek whimpered a little besides him, reaching up to brush Stiles fingers over the bite. 

"It hurts? I didn't think about that." The only mating stories he heard were his parents and they were both wolves so there was never any real pain involved with it. 

He should have paid more attention to what was going on with him when he first met Stiles. Thinking back on it, he could recognize now that meeting Stiles was meeting a potential mate. If they hadn't have had sex, Derek could have left and the separation sickness probably never would have happened. 

It would have been easier on Stiles but… Derek was glad for once that he was so stupid. Even if it was momentary and selfish, that stupidity got him Stiles. 

"It's okay big guy. It's only a little sore. Once you made me bite you I kind of expected I was getting a bite back. " He was glad that it wasn't as bad as he expected it to be. 

There was a warm feeling in his chest that when Stiles thought about it felt like Derek. This Derek that was content and happy like he had never been in their short acquaintanceship. 

Stiles wished he could keep him this way. 

If only things were that simple. 

"I still feel it. I still want you, need you. I think- it might last a little while. The worst … should pass with the moon. Maybe all of it but, I think it lingered around with my sister for a few days." Though Laura was in control of herself and hadn't ever been in the presence of a compatible mate. Derek was hoping that once the full moon was passed and because they made the marks, it would be done. 

The world loved to prove Derek wrong. It took two more days for it to all go away. 

Well the wanting Stiles close never went away. He could stay upstairs in the loft when Stiles had to go down to work, but when Stiles said he was going to the store and got a couple blocks away Derek had to dart after him. 

The book Stiles had ordered miraculously had some information about mates. The book seemed to be an old emissary book as opposed to something from a hunter. 

This stage after bonding was normal. Everything, the emotions, magic and pheromones were still settling. Apparently this small period of instability was the only time a bond could be broken by another wolf laying their claim. That was why the instinct to stay close was there. 

It wasn't so inconvenient. 

Stiles at least seemed to be eating up the cuddle time. Stiles was very… adaptable. He took new situations, new twists and he made them work. 

Derek wasn't really like that but it was easy to go along with Stiles. 

"What's your favorite color?" 

"Green." Stiles snorted. 

"Sweet dude, predictable, but sweet. I'm guessing forest green in particular. Mines red." Stiles answered him back. Derek didn't know why but he felt like preening at Stiles admission. Perhaps because as an Alpha he always thought of himself as red. His eyes the general feel of the power inside him. Before he used to imagine it as blue, even before his eyes were. Now he was red and it was Stiles favorite color. 

"Favorite little woodland creature." 

"To eat or to look at?" Derek shot back with a smirk enjoying the squeak Stiles made. 

"Nooooo! Don't eat them they're Bambi's friends." He couldn't tell how serious Stiles was but there was definitely teasing going on. 

"Squirrels to chase, deer to eat, those tiny little birds to look at." Stiles snorted again. Derek really liked that sound. 

They had been playing this game for about an hour now. Stiles had come home to a home cooked meal… of eggs in a basket. Which was about all Derek knew how to make because someone else always cooked for him. He just wanted to do something for Stiles after his shift at the bar. 

After Stiles had gushed about how cute Derek was they'd ate and then fell into bed for a nice round of vigorous sex. Derek topped this time. He liked the switching. Stiles had started up this question game after. 

They were tied together, forever, but they still needed to get to know each other and this was a nice way to do it. 

"Summer, fall, winter, or spring?" Stiles asked and Derek rolled into him, kissed him softly. 

"Spring. Things are new and fresh. It's still cool outside because the heat waves haven't come." 

"Fall for me. Fall has the best Holliday's too! Halloween, Thanksgiving, there's soft sweaters and wool socks! Ah, I love it." Stiles looked dreamy when he said it and Derek kissed him for it again. 

They talked like that until Stiles fell asleep and Derek curled into him to follow his example. 

No matter how much Derek wanted to just keep existing in this warm happy bubble they'd made in Stiles loft, he couldn't forget about Kate forever. She would be coming.

It seemed when Derek took to curling up in Stiles bed and puttering around the loft while Stiles was gone Stiles didn't just play cello and run errands. 

Just when Derek was about to try and convince him that they needed to run away again, Stiles was plopping down on the comfy couch and opening his laptop. 

"First thing you should probably know about me is that I'm a… researcher. I like to have all the information. The amount of rabbit holes I have gone down in internet induced research hazes are innumerable," Stiles sighed and tapped on his keyboard a little, pulling up some files. 

"I know my way into a police report, so I looked. You were right to run. I mean. I am not going to show you the photos but even just looking at them myself, even if I was unbiased those are not pictures of an accidental fire. Yet all these trained police officers working the case let a sketchy arson investigator say it was an electrical fire? An accident? They were either in on it or just bought off. Still. They would have given you over in a heartbeat.

Derek didn't respond because he knew that already. Maybe not with hard facts but he knew it. At least Stiles knew it now too. Maybe it was enough to convince him they needed to run. 

"I know my dad has friends in other police forces. Even the FBI, despite what I told you about Scott's dad my dad kept some of their friends in the uh friend divorce? Whatever. Anyways the point is with this new file I have, and if you would give your testimony about what happened they can do something legal about it. We could set-" 

"So what if you get Kate for my family? The Argent's are big and they don't just have members that are blood family. And they're friendly with other hunting families. All they have to do is ask someone else to do it and they come for us too!" Derek got it. His life was shitty, he lived in abandoned places and moved every couple weeks but he never went hungry and Stiles wouldn't either. He knew leaving the cellos would be hard, but Stiles had friends and family that could come get them for him so they weren't lost. 

Yes Stiles wouldn't get to play anymore but… they would be together?

Derek felt guilty that that was all Stiles got from it. Being with Derek but, they made the bond. They were marked. 

"Derek I reached out to an Argent. Now before you go getting paranoid as all fuck because you can't believe this is a small world after all and that not everyone wants to murder you- but Scott dated an Argent once. In college, freshman year. I mean she might not have been an Argent hunter and just had the name for some reason but I sent her a message. One line, from an anonymous email with the code you told me. 

"Once I felt her out, I found out she was part of the family, I sent her everything I had and knew. She was horrified." Stiles tried to assure him, but Derek felt oddly numb, and panicked all at once. 

"They're coming. They're going to find us. She's lying. She's going to trick you." Derek could barely hear himself as he talked, standing up on shaking legs to pace. He needed to pack his bag. Stiles needed a bag too. 

They would need a car. Stiles couldn't shift and run like Derek. 

There was a used car lot Derek could buy out right from, with a little extra on top maybe they would ignore some of the paperwork. Make it more anonymous. 

Stiles grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him close. 

"Breathe. I know how to make an email untraceable, okay? Allison doesn't know where we are or who I am. All she knows is I'm someone with information and I'm reaching out to her about it. 

"Now this is the hardest thing you have to hear about this is the thing you have to trust me on. Allison Argent is Chris Argent's daughter and Chris is Kate's brother, but they don't talk anymore. Gerard went crazy, like way off any code kind of crazy, hacking up pregnant women insane after he got cancer. Chris left his father and Kate stayed. Chris and Kate, Allison and Kate, they're not in touch.”

This was a nightmare. He could feel where this was going. Stiles was going to ask him to go for help from Argent's. If he wasn't so afraid of hurting Stiles he might have torn himself away and found some place he could give in to the awful feelings bubbling inside him.

Instead he just breathed and stood still in Stiles' hold. 

"Allison wants to help us. Her father wants to hear it from you first. He wants proof that his sister did it and is still after you but he still wants to help us too. Allison said she got them on a new code. 'We protect those who cannot protect themselves'. "

Stiles watched as Derek took on the role of a statue and gave a fucking Emmy worthy performance. If Stiles wasn't pressed against him, he wouldn't have known if Derek was breathing.

Slowly Stiles reached up to cup Derek's face so that Derek would look at him finally. Derek let it happen easily. He was…. A lot of things but this was his mate. 

"We can't run forever. It's not a life, and I'd really like a chance at a life with you." Stiles watched as Derek crumpled, looking close to tears. It was overwhelming. Stiles couldn't even imagine how much. 

But the only way they could live their lives was if the Argents helped them. 

They were the only thing that might stop Kate. 

Derek wanted to give Stiles a good life but to trust an Argent again?

"I don't want to lose you," Derek managed to say as he tried to keep himself together. 

If this was another trap, a trick, it would kill them both and Derek had only just met his mate. 

He needed more time, he needed all the time he never got with his family and then some. 

He was ready to have that time homeless, forever on the run, but Stiles clearly wasn't. Derek could understand that, he really could. It was just that trusting an Argent- any of them, felt a bit like suicide. 

"Let me borrow your laptop," Derek said resigned to it. This is what Stiles wanted and… it probably had the same chance of dying as staying on the run did. 

Stiles smiled softly at him, and motioned to the open screen dark laptop. He had meant to show Allison's messages but those could wait. 

Wildly, Derek pulled up a Hotmail account on Outlook and went into some drafts. 

He brought up dozens of images of a startlingly young looking Derek who was attractive but in that way that Stiles would say 'thats a handsome kid, he's really going to grow into himself' not 'my 22 year old ass needs to fuck that'. Not the way that Kate who looked older than 22 looked in one of those pictures that she was in control of. 

They had obviously just had sex, they were naked from the waist up, and probably down, but a comforter hid that. Derek looked bashful and proud. Probably because it was weird taking naked photos with someone, but also 'cause he thought he was the luckiest 16 year old having sex with a hot older woman. 

Derek looked like he was going to be sick and Stiles was right there with him. 

"Kate didn't let me take many pictures. She said no one would understand we were so good for each other- meant to be… that if they saw we couldn't be together any more. So I saved them to my email instead of putting them on Myspace or whatever." Derek didn't know how that didn't raise red flags with him then. 

Well. It did. He remembered sometimes feeling like it wasn't right. Sometimes the way she touched him in bed… she'd some how convinced him he was just being stupid about it or shallow or was shaming her for her love of sex. 

He wished he had told someone, got away from her the first time his belly flipped and it wasn't from excitement. 

"Send those to Allison. She can show her dad. If he can't believe she did it from these pictures, they can't help us." All the proof he had after the pictures that Kate had set the fire was his word, and Stiles had already given that. 

If Chris wouldn't believe it, Kate would slip in. She would slip in and kill his mate. Derek would give his life to keep that from happening. 

Stiles didn't say anything, just downloaded the pictures, sent them in an attachment to Allison. Then he deleted them off his computer, and shut it. His phone would alert him to a new message. 

"Let's go lay down, okay? Order something bad for us, and watch some movies." Derek was grateful for the redirection. 

Allison didn't get back to him until about four in the morning and Stiles didn't get it until they woke up. He checked it while Derek was in the shower determined not to put him through a play by play unless it was helpful and not just Allison somehow managing to get the feeling of sobbing her eyes out through text. 

There was plenty of the sobbing coming through but apparently Chris was going off the walls. 

It was one thing to him that his father went insane and off the code because the cancer panic was eating him up and Kate was standing by him. 

It was another for Kate to have burned down not one, not two, but six houses before the Hale house. 

Molested a teenage boy, killed his family, and then spent the next eight years tracking that boy- now man- all across the country, killing anyone and everyone Derek so much as breathed on too long.

It was sick obsession. It was crazier than even Gerard was, and Allison didn't know how they could ever make even half that up to Derek. 

She didn't think stopping Kate would make up for even a fourth of it. 

At least they had a plan. 

Allison lived with her father in good old Wyoming. They had a gun store there that was fairly lucrative, and it was always good to have a gun store and gun store business to keep people's eyes off you when you had guns around. 

They had a big ranch property they lived in, that was nicely secluded from other people. Especially with Allison's little hobby of making various arrows, some of which were exploding. 

She wanted them to come live with them for a while. The land was well protected, and they could keep them safe while Kate was dealt with. 

Stiles didn't respond. Just got up to make them breakfast and worry over it. 

Derek almost broke down just having to talk about it, just considering an Argent or Argent's helping them. 

Living with them in their compound? Stiles was afraid that Derek would stress himself into a heart attack. Which had to be really fucking hard for a werewolf but Derek might just do it. 

When Derek stepped out of the 'bathroom' Stiles had pancakes stacked high on a plate, and bacon on a paper towel to soak up some of the grease. 

"I thought it was my turn to make breakfast," Derek said with a small smile as he came down the short flight of stairs. Stiles moved everything to his little kitchen table. Including the cups of coffee he'd poured when he saw Derek's shadow stepping out of the shower behind the folding screen. 

"It was a tough day yesterday, I thought I'd do a nice thing." The kiss he got for it was hot and deep. Stiles was about to steer them back upstairs when Derek moved to sit. 

Stiles grumbled about teases but joined too.

"Hungry?" Stiles laughed because out of the truly impressive stack of pancakes he had stress cooked, Derek had moved all but about five from the plate to his own.

Derek blushed and blinked like he hadn't realized he had taken so many. Stiles reached out to stop him from putting them back. 

"It's okay. I made enough for at least two werewolves, and I'm no teenage boy anymore. Eat up, baby." Stiles had noticed that wolves were basically garbage disposals. There didn't seem to be a thing Derek wouldn't eat. 

If Stiles didn't finish his food, Derek did. Even the odd things like when he picked the water chestnuts out of his take out, or pulled the onions out of his sandwich when he forgot to order it without. Derek ate it all. 

It was the cutest thing. 

They ate in an easy silence. Usually this early in a relationship, Stiles still tended to babble a lot. Like he needed to empty the entirety of his brain all thoughts past present and future on his partner before they were the real deal. 

With Derek Stiles didn't feel like he needed to pour himself out all over him. He did a lot of talking sure but they also had lots of quiet moments. And to be fair. Stiles was usually the one breaking them. 

Derek did it this morning. 

"I know you heard from Argent. I could see you checking your phone." The way that Stiles had set his small vanity and mirror away from the mirror over the sink because the sink had no counter space meant from a crack in the curtain from the shower he could see the end of the bed where Stiles had sat and looked troubled over something.

Stiles looked reluctant and then caved. 

"They believe you, and it sounds like Chris is losing his shit about how fucked this is and how badly he wants to shoot something about it." Seems like Allisons way of dealing with the truly upsetting was to get weepy. 

Chris shot the bad things. Probably for even daring to make him feel like he wanted to be weepy. 

"She asked us to come live with them under their protection until Kate is dealt with." Stiles said fast like ripping off a bandaid. 

For all he was worried about Derek losing his shit about this he was only quiet for a while, stuck mid chew. He swallowed and then nodded. 

"Okay, we'll go." 


	4. Chapter 4

He hadn't argued. Not even when Stiles had started asking if he was sure. If he was okay. Derek just said he was but he could tell Stiles knew that wasn't true.

The only thing he was okay with was getting on the move. 

In two weeks. 

Stiles needed that time for notice at his job and ending his 'lease'. Derek didn't see how a cellist at a cocktail bar needed to give two weeks notice but Stiles also used that time to pack everything up and call his dad to retrieve it. 

Apparently it was not a hard thing to explain to the Sheriff. He and Scott had came right out and told him what had happened 'unofficially' since officially it was a mountain lion. 

The man wasn't happy about his son suddenly being married (that's what we're going to call it for now, Derek), and fleeing a homicidal maniac. But he understood by now he couldn't stop his son from doing the things he thought were important. 

They left in Stiles Jeep, a thing he hadn't know Stiles had, because in a city with public transportation a car just hadn't come up. 

Derek's bag sat sad and lonely behind the passenger seat, while Stiles had jammed the rest of the car full of things he said he couldn't live without for however long they would be living with Allison. 

There are clothes and toiletries just like Derek but also boxes of books, his laptop bag, Stella, a cooler for as many snacks and things Stiles could prep for their long car trip, and bizarrely packaged in bubble wrap so thick you couldn't tell what it was, the coffee maker, and the small assortment of mugs Stiles owned. 

Being in a car was uncomfortable and weird for the wolf in him. It was confining and made his ass sore when he could be breezing across the distance until his legs burned and he found a place for him to hunker down, maybe hunt until he repeated the process. 

At least Stiles was fun on road trips. Stiles seemed to have an endless supply of car games to play. When they got tired of the back and forth, he had an endless eclectic mix of music for them to listen to. 

There was even some fondling when they stopped at a spectacularly clean bathroom. 

And definitely some wild sex at a secluded campground on a blanket Stiles spread out when they stopped for the night. 

It helped make Derek feel better about this and not like they were marching to their deaths. 

The trip took two days to drive. They slept outside, about four miles from the town the Argent's lived near and their gun store was. 

Well tried to sleep. It was mostly just restless turning and stretching out after long hours in the car. 

"Are you sure that this is okay?" Stiles asked. He was confident that it was safe for them there, but Stiles was still worried that they would get there and Derek would complete lose his shit. 

Derek felt a little jittery but the effect of Stiles bond and his own hopeful confidence soothed him. He trusted Stiles like he hadn't trusted anyone in years. It was hard to lose control with Stiles presence steady besides him. 

"I don't trust them, and I can't say that I'll be happy with all of this but… I can manage it, and I'll have you." And if this went right eventually they could settle down, have something normal without Kate threatening to take it away at any moment. 

Stiles kissed him softly and laid back on Derek's chest. They waited until sunrise before packing up and heading to the gun store. The GPS wouldn't be able to take them out to the Silver Arrow Ranch, so they were supposed to meet at their store and brought down. 

Derek was buzzing with the need to run the closer they got, but it was pure paranoia and not instinct telling him something was wrong. 

At least Stiles seemed excited. 

"I loved Allison, she was great, I mean I didn't like how stupid she made Scott but as soon as she realized how stupid Scott was being she kicked his ass into shape." Stiles laughed at his fond memories. 

When Stiles told Scott he was being an absolute tool with 'Allison said this' or 'Allison did the cutest' stuff and ditching Stiles constantly for her, Scott acted like he wasn't doing it. 

When Allison said he was being a tool brushing off his friends and tanking his grades to spend time with her Scott took time to be 'Scott' and not 'Allison&Scott'. 

Herrington, Wyoming was beautiful. It was a little smaller than Beacon Hills and nearing that everyone knows everyone territory. It smelled so fresh here, and Stiles was forgetting the smell of a bigger city already. 

Argent Arms was located just outside of downtown, where all the buildings were made out of pretty stone and the aesthetic was definitely old historic. 

They even had those old looking street lamps liking the walkways of downtown to seal it all together. 

Derek was reluctantly charmed, and clearly relieved when they got out at Argent Arms and there was only the normal scents of gunpowder. There wasn't a hint of wolfsbane. 

Mountain Ash didn't even stop them at the door. They were greeted with a tinkling bell and a sweet voice that called, "just a second!" 

Stiles slipped his hand into Derek's and took a deep breath. Derek copied him to calm himself down. Though the panic wasn't quite rising. 

Not too long after a beaming girl came bouncing out of a back door and behind the counter. 

"How can I- Oh!" She stopped clearly recognizing Derek even if he was older than the only pictures that she had seen, and with a lot of surprise, Stiles. 

"Stiles, you asshole! You were my contact?" She laughed and vaulted the counter to tackle Stiles into a hug. He didn't drop Derek's hand to return it and miraculously Derek didn't growl at the Argent touching his mate. 

She pulled back like she suddenly remembered she shouldn't touch a wolves mate like that, when she was non-pack and probably in the minds of the wolf a grey area of friend or foe. At best. 

"I'm sorry, it's just so good to see you. I've missed you, Scott has kept in touch a little, you know, once in a blue moon stuff. I always hoped that you would." Stiles shrugged like 'what can you do'. 

"Allison, this is Derek Hale, my mate. Are we too early?" The shop must have only just opened and Stiles hadn't been able to give her an exact time they would arrive. His internet service on his phone had been shitty until they made it into town. 

She turned and smiled at Derek with those sweeter than life dimples and Derek couldn't even force himself to think of her as some psycho killer. Not that he trusted her yet. She just wasn't giving off any warning bells. 

"Hi," Derek remembered to say and she repeated it still smiling. 

"My dad's gonna be here soon, then I can take ya'll up to the house. We have a cabin close to the main house all ready for you. Our ranch used to be a cattle ranch so there's a couple cabins on the property that were meant for the farmhands. You're going to love it." Derek softened some when he was told they were going to have their own space. Even if it was on Argent land, he was just glad he wouldn't be in their house. 

"Sounds good to me, should we go do a grocery run or something?" Stiles asked, completely fine with doing all the talking since Derek didn't seem to want to do any. 

"Maybe, I mean the cabin has a fridge and stove so you can cook, but you're also more than welcome to come take meals at the big house with us." Allison obviously wanted to be a good hostess, and probably definitely a good friend to Stiles again, but Stiles didn't think Derek was ready for that. Even if he would quietly go along with it. 

"Thanks, but we like cooking too. Meet you at the store?" Stiles asked, squeezing Derek's hand and starting to turn to the door. 

"Don't get too many veggies, we've got a garden I've been a little ambitious about and we're overflowing." Allison beamed obviously not trying to show that she was a little disappointed that they wouldn't join her. 

Derek nodded to her as they left. So far everything seemed alright. Allison seemed genuinely nice. Their store hadn't been laid with mountain ash, and she didn't smell like wolfsbane. 

Argent's had always focused on wolves but now that their code, Allison's code at least, had changed to something of protection it seemed they didn't keep their businesses and homes warded against wolves. 

It used to be the only thing they kept free of mountain ash were their workspaces. And by workspaces, Derek meant torture chambers.

"Let's get a lot of meat." Derek said as he opened the drivers door for Stiles. Stiles wouldn't let him drive the Jeep because if the way it liked to stick when strangers drove. 

Derek had badgered him into letting Derek drive for all of ten minutes before he ground the gears doing exactly what Stiles always did. 

He had not been given a second chance. 

"Better get lots of ziplocks so we can portion it out and stick some in the freezer then." 

Stiles had been in the habit of going out and buying meat and veggies in small quantities when he wanted to cook it instead of buying a big haul of food every two weeks. 

But it seemed like they wouldn't have the opportunity to do that every day like they did in the city, and probably soon it wouldn't be safe to do it either. 

Sticking to the Argent ranch seemed to be in their future. 

At least Allison had mentioned they had some nice acreage, and good woodland that cut through some of it. Derek would like that to run.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Really speeding through posting so sorry for errors I'm not catching. Here be the mpreg.

Two days into trying to settle into the Argent's ranch Derek woke up cramping with nausea and hurrying to their bathroom toilet. 

His knees hit the tile with a sharp crack and he damn near broke the lid when he threw it open to be sick. 

Stiles was a heavy sleeper, but with the violent way that Derek had struggled out of bed he'd practically knocked Stiles to the floor. 

Stiles had followed right after Derek and was frantically running hands over him and trying to see what color his vomit was. 

He didn't know what would make a wolf sick but if black stuff was coming out of Derek it was wolfsbane. 

All it looked was green and chunky with the remains of their dinner a few hours before.

Stiles sat back a little less frantic because not black meant not dying in his book. Though he was still trying to catch on to everything. Derek since he came back that full moon over a month ago had been trying to fill him in. 

But Derek didn't know everything either. Stiles reached for their cup on the bathroom sink and filled it with water for Derek to rinse. 

The wolf took it gladly. He rinsed, spit, flushed, repeated that process with only a little dry heaving, then sat back against their truly awesome clawfoot tub. 

"I'm okay," Derek breathed. He wasn't sure if that statement was true but after puking he did feel better. Still a little nauseous but it was settling. 

"Are you sure because I was pretty sure that you said werewolves don't get sick. That was pretty sick, man." Stiles worried, he was a worrier and just because he relaxed when there wasn't any black grossness in Derek's vomit, that didn't mean that he wasn't worried. 

"I don't hurt or anything… I don't think I have a temperature." At least not one that was abnormal for a wolf. He felt fine except for the little bit of nausea still rolling around in the pit of his stomach. 

Stiles watched him for a while, worrying his lip some. "Maybe we should ask Allison or her dad if they know a wolf doctor? You have those right?" 

Derek nodded. Their 'wolf doctors' were usually the pack emissary but there were also wolves that became doctors. Wolves didn't really get sick, but they did give birth and get hurt. A broken bone could heal on its own but only after it got set and that needed to be done properly. It wasn't something every wolf knew how to do. 

"Okay." In two days they hadn't had any confrontations with the Argent's. Well. They'd only seen the two but Derek was fairly sure they were keeping the others away until he was comfortable. He wouldn't actually say he trusted them but he trusted them enough to get a doctor for him. 

He wasn't stupid enough to brush this off as nothing. The only times that he remembered vomiting was when he was poisoned. This didn't feel like that but puking wasn't a good thing. 

"Let's just go back to bed." Derek said and reached out for Stiles to help him and himself back to their feet. Stiles wrapped his arm around Derek's middle and they walked back to their bed. 

The cabin was spacious but it was an open concept like their loft had been. Only the bathroom here was walled in. They laid out on the king size bed which was an improvement on their full, even if they did spend most of the time wrapped up in each other. 

"We'll take care of this, it's okay," Stiles promised. Derek let himself believe it because Stiles made him want to, and closed his eyes. Eventually he even fell asleep.

Waking up the second time was calmer. He was still a little nauseous but he couldn't tell if it was because he was sick or because he was starving. 

Stiles had somehow escaped their bed, and the cabin all without his notice. Though Derek could still hear his heartbeat, and knew he was up at the big house which was in spitting distance. 

Today was Stiles turn to make breakfast, but he must have forgotten with last night's scare and his determination to get Derek a doctor. 

They hadn't missed breakfast together since they started having breakfast together, even if it was shitty convenience store food. 

Derek wanted to wait but he didn't feel like he would make it. If he didn't eat something he was sure he'd throw up again. 

Stiles was pretty good at cooking only what they needed. He stood by the fact that the only things that were good leftover were pizza, chicken nuggets/strips, and baked goods like cupcakes/cakes/brownies. 

He was usually pretty good at making sure there weren't any leftovers too, even if he never mastered the art of cooking his two real non breakfast meals in portions meant for only a couple. 

It was all very regrettable right then when he pulled open the fridge, bent over to look into it and to try and ease the nausea. There wasn't anything that didn't really need to be prepared and cooked. Derek had never been fond of cereal because it tasted way too processed with chemically dyes. 

The lack of immediately satisfying foods could almost bring a man to tears. Derek settled for irritably snatching the nearest thing, which happened to be a tomato and biting into it. 

Stiles came back right as Derek was scowling at the tomato for being immediately unappealing. 

"Babe?" Stiles asked in amusement as Derek held the tomato. He looked torn between finishing it and being sick (because the tomato obvious didn't ease the nausea and instead twisted it a little) and wasting good food. 

The reluctance to throw up again had him tossing it in the box to store their compost. The Argents were into that, composting. Allison liked reusable bags, glass jars, minimizing plastic. Derek kind of liked that too so he put up with the small unpleasant smell of the compost box and just took to frequently dumping it. 

"I just want to eat something now. Right now." Derek was not pouting. No matter what the cute yet annoying quirk of Stiles mouth suggested. 

Instead of saying anything about it though Stiles went to the cabinet and pulled down a sleeve of saltines. "I always eat these when I'm nauseous. Usually works. Especially when I wake up hungover. Until, you know, the combination of cotton mouth from drinking and dry saltines has my throat stuck from lack of moisture. Soaks up the bad tummy juices or whatever though." 

Derek took them and went to settle on the couch that faced away from where the bed was set up and towards the little fireplace. 

"What did they say?" Stiles obviously went to ask about a doctor. Which he probably found since he didn't look upset in the least. Derek felt a little miserable and his teeth a little furry but he wasn't going to brush before eating when he was hungry like this. 

The saltines did help a little. 

"There's a pack about an hour away that is friendly with Allison and her dad. They're sending their emissary. Should be here by noon. I told them it was urgent but not an emergency, since you seemed okay. Mostly. " He wasn't in danger of dying at least so he felt safe enough to let their emissary dude actually wake up and do his morning thing before making an hour long drive. 

Stiles started pulling out the stuff for the breakfast he'd promised to make. Sausage patties, eggs and hash browns. It was a bit of a more time consuming meal but Derek wasn't meant to wake up grumpy and impatient to be fed. 

Not that Stiles wasn't completely understanding. Being sick was shit. It would make anyone grumpy and probably more so a wolf who probably never had so much as a sniffle before. 

"So. Allison wants to talk to us after the emissary has a look at you. Seemed important." So it was probably about Kate. 

No one had exactly laid out a game plan yet. Stiles had a goal of course. Kate being dead and them getting to either go back to the loft or deciding on a more permanent state of life and maybe settling down in Stiles home town, training with his dad, being a deputy. 

Normally he wasn't so 'kill em all' unless video games were the topic of discussion, but with Kate? The woman who tormented Derek, trying to kill the man that he was very quickly and very deeply falling in love with? Yeah he wanted her dead. 

Prison was just a place she could either escape from (unlikely) or give out orders to continue her work by proxy (very extremely likely). 

The point of this was to not be hunted anymore, so Kate had to go. No one in the world would miss her. 

Stiles didn't even think Chris and Allison would, even if they didn't particularly want to kill her themselves from some sort of familial bond or sentimental memories of when Kate wasn't a raping piece of homicidal trash. 

Derek just hummed and bit into another saltine. 

He didn't expect a solution or anything helpful. He thought at best they would just be discussing possibilities. Rules for staying here. Derek was sure there was some boundaries Chris wanted to put in. They'd been given time to settle in and be welcomed, so the inevitable 'this is how we co-exist' talk had to be looming. 

Derek was expecting to be told not to run and hunt in the woods on the property. Even though it was what he loved to do on the full moon. Which was coming in about a week and a half. Derek didn't plot it out on the calendar. He felt it inside, so he didn't have an exact date.

He wondered if Stiles would want to run with him. Not truly run but at least go out. It would be their third moon together. The first had been filled with sex by that bond driven heat. The second had been just before they started really packing. They ate pizza and cuddled and Derek had been a bit restless but he didn't particularly want to leave Stiles side. 

"Do you want to ask if you can use the woods on the full moon?" Stiles asked and Derek twisted to look at him over the arm of the couch. They were bonded and could feel each other's emotions some, but they weren't mind readers. 

Still Stiles had an uncanny way of getting in on Derek's thoughts. 

"I mean I know that we've been staying in for them but my calendar says the moon is soon and a wolf has to want to run. You've told me how much you like your other skin." Stiles smiled and cracked an egg into a pan. He was so good at that one handed crack. 

"I'd like to, but sometimes when I run in wolf skin I get caught up in the baser instincts and I'll want to hunt. They probably won't like that." A hunt left a mess, he couldn't eat every bit of the thing he killed and the hunters probably wouldn't want that just sitting out on their property. Even if it was hidden in the woods. 

"Doesn't hurt to ask. How many sausages do you want?" Stiles asked as he opened the package. Derek was always amazed how he could get going like this. 

He could chatter away, and have about four different things on the stove and even sometimes something in the oven. Stiles liked to try and get it all cooked and done at the same time. Derek loved watching him do it. 

"Doesn't hurt to ask. Four," Derek agreed. Though he wasn't optimistic about it. 

Stiles was. He was an optimist, even if he assured Derek that he really, really wasn't. 

For Derek, Stiles pulled himself out of the what if and bad thought spirals to try and urge him onto nice things. No point in two Negative Nancy's. Nathan's. Whatever. 

"Come eat my wolfy hubby. My wubby- Ah!" Stiles yelped and then roared with laughter after Derek flung a saltine at him like a throwing star. 

"Food caveman, don't let my efforts go cold." Stiles laughed again, and Derek basked in the sound. He liked to imagine it did more to ease the nausea than the saltines did. 

Eggs were the devil's bastard children, Derek was certain of it. The smell of them was great just like every other time Stiles had made them but the moment he put a forkful in his mouth he wanted to vomit. 

Potatoes increased the nausea but didn't push it up into his throat like the eggs did. 

The sausage was a hit and Stiles pushed his four in with Derek's since it seemed like the only thing his belly was going to accept. 

Neither of them could wait for the emissary to get there.

"You should go back to bed until he gets here. I was going to take the laundry up to the house but I think cuddles are in order." Stiles smiled at him. Derek might have argued except he felt so miserable. 

"I'll get the bed warm." Derek said as he got up. Stiles still had a full breakfast to finish where Derek had already finished off as many of his eight sausages he could. 

Derek settled some into the bed that already smelled so strongly if them. Stiles drooled and they Derek made them jerk each other off into the sheets so that it smelled less foreign and he could actually get to sleep that first night.

If he had maybe rubbed a bit of their cum on a few other surfaces, no one needed to know. Derek just had a strong urge to mark their new den. 

Stiles came to bed a little bit later once the dishes were cleaned and put on their drying rack. 

He curled up around Derek and held him tight. Stiles did a wonderful impression of scenting that settled Derek further. 

It actually wasn't so bad being here. The Argent's stayed away from the cabin and had done their very best to clean it out without leaving their scent. 

It smelled fresh and clean here, and Derek loved their sheets and clothes. They dried out on a line so they smelled like sun and crisp air. 

Derek wouldn't say he was a country boy or anything like that but he liked this kind of living. Out on big property with lots of trees, close to a town, and within a reasonable drive to a big city. 

Stiles seemed to like it too. He had really enjoyed that the Argent's had WiFi up here and how pretty it was to play Stella on their porch. 

"Someone drove in." Derek said after a long while of them laying there just drifting, not really sleeping at all. 

Stiles nodded and got out of bed to put his pants back on. 

"Do you want to come out on the porch?" Stiles asked as he found a pair of sleep pants for Derek. Not that he wore them much. If he wasn't sleeping naked it was in his underwear. 

Not that Stiles minded of course. 

"Yeah. Porch is good." He didn't really want a stranger in the den he was still trying to work their scents into. 

They had a porch swing that Derek was rather fond of and usually occupied while Stiles played Stella in the chair beside it. They both sat in it now. 

The emissary parked his truck up at the big house, and pulled a black leather bag out of the back seat. Stiles snickered at it. 

"It's just like the movies, a doctor house call at the farm!" He laughed again and Derek gave him a soft smile. 

When the wind changed direction Derek got a whiff of their visitor. The absence of a scent was a little jarring. On the wind Derek could scent the garden out by the big house, the petricor out in the woods, a million other things but there was a gap in all those scents where something should be and just wasn't. 

Derek growled lowly the closer the man came until the emissary stopped just shy of the porch steps. 

He regarded the agitated werewolf and curious human before sucking in a breath. 

"Ah. Sorry, habit." The man said and did something with his hand. Suddenly Derek was bombarded with his scent. The suddenness of it stopped his growl. It did ease him some. 

Scent was important to werewolves. The majority of what they knew of a person, or thing came from scent. What they were feeling, if they were dangerous. The total absence of it while he could physically see him was putting Derek on the offensive. 

Now he smelled overwhelmingly like peppermint balm. While Derek wasn't a fan of peppermint really, it was preferable to the nothingness there was before.

"I was told this matter was important, but I wasn't to talk about meeting you. So it was best to forgo introductions. However you can call me Fred. So. May I take your hands?" He asked Derek. 

He didn't particularly want to do it, but he'd had this done before. It was quicker and less invasive than another emissary might be. 

Derek slowly let go of Stiles hand and held his out for Fred to take. His hands were warm and dry, but then they turned hot. Not scalding but like holding a stone warmed next to a fire. 

The feeling crept up his arms, to his shoulders, made his face flush. Just when it had filled every inch of him, the warmth drained away quickly and Derek took his hands back feeling a little chilled after that heat snapped back so fast. 

Fred was looking at him with a furrowed brow. He opened his bag and reached for a stethoscope. 

"If you could lean back some." He motioned before setting the thing to Derek stomach. Derek snapped his teeth at him when the icy metal touched. He hated doctors. Even emissaries just acting as doctor. They all had the same bedside manner. 

"Well. That's something." Fred said as he leaned back away from where he'd bent over Derek. "Give me your hand," Fred said to Stiles. 

"What? I'm good, I'm not sick." Stiles tried to protest. It didn't matter so much as Fred grabbed up one of his hands anyways. 

They pulled their hands away quickly like they were shocked by something and Fred nodded. 

"You don't have a pack, do you Alpha? Not counting this mate of yours?" Derek nodded quietly. He didn't like talking about that. He had all of these instincts to build one, but he never could. 

Fred hummed in understanding. "You were packless when you met this one, and started the bond under the full moon?" Derek nodded again. He didn't see what any of this had to do with him vomiting his brains out. 

"I'm sure you've felt it, how a wolf's instincts are strongly geared towards survival. An alphas even more so. For alphas the pack must always survive and sometimes with the right variables something extremely rare can happen. 

"A packless alpha, meeting their mate, bonding on the full moon to someone with magic, well. The two magic’s mix, and things begin to change. You let your mate… mount you, then you had a heat I'm guessing? When the moon was full and the magic strongest in you? You're pregnant. That's all. You've had morning sickness. 

Fred finished by sitting down in Stiles usual chair.

Both of them just stared dumbly for a while before Stiles exploded in sputtering. 

"He's a guy! He can't be pregnant! Where would a baby even go, how is it even going to get out! You're wrong there's now way! I mean I don't even have any magic!" Stiles motioned wildly. He was always moving his hands when he talked but he was worked up enough that he smacked himself in the face with a sharp crack. 

Derek was still just… shocked. 

No one had ever told him that this was a thing that could happen to anyone. Ever. He used to be told a lot of weird faerie tales when he was young. Weird wolf legends, and in none of them did a man get pregnant. 

But Derek was a shifter. His entire magic was about change. Especially as a full shift wolf. If anyone was going to spontaneously grow a uterus it would be the man that turned into an animal whenever he wanted. 

Still. 

A fucking person was growing inside him. 

A pup. His brain supplied and suddenly he was whining. Whimpering. He had a pup. He had pack. He had a mate and pack. That was more than he ever thought he would have and Kate was still out there. 

It was hard to take a breath and it seemed like all he could do was get out these pitiful whines. 

Stiles almost fell off the swing with how fast he turned to Derek from where he was arguing with Fred. 

"Babe, Derek, look at me. Look. It's okay, watch me. See how I'm breathing? Do what I do." Stiles seemed a little frantic as he grabbed Derek's arms and started to breathe. His breaths were deep and steady though. 

He pulled them in, and held them before letting them out. At first Derek only managed short sucks that he immediately whined out. Stiles pulled Derek's hand to his chest. 

"In. Out. In, out," Stiles coaxed gently. He was patient with it and eventually Derek could breathe. That sharp almost suffocating feeling of not safe, didn't go away. It looked over him like it might smother him again, but for now he could breathe. 

Stiles was quiet for a minute just watching Derek before he settled back down. Fred hadn't really paid them any attention as Derek panicked and Stiles talked him down. 

Instead he had been mixing something together in a large amber bottle with a dropper. 

"It's early days for this. We don't know how stable this pregnancy is. If it will even be viable. From my quick assessment of you, the presence of the fetus is strong. At least as strong as any other at this stage that I have felt. That could change as if gets bigger. Magic or not it might not be enough. 

"This is like prenatal vitamins with a bit extra to account for the needs of a growing werewolf. And a little something to ease the nausea. One dropper full in the morning. " He instructed as he held out the amber bottle. Stiles took it for him. Derek was grateful because he felt too shaky to hold the thing.

"Do you think that I will lose it?" Derek asked with a wobble to his words. It was… so weird and foreign to think that something was growing inside him, but Fred was right. All of his instincts latched on to the new life. The pup. He didn't want to lose it. 

Stiles squeezed his hand tightly. Derek couldn't tell what it was that he was feeling about all this but Derek at least trusted he would be there for him. Just like now holding his hand so tight. 

Fred scratched his short blonde hair. It wasn't a confident gesture. 

"I haven't ever dealt with this. Right now the fetus is as strong as it can be this small. You're an alpha, and this is your mate. Who from what I can tell is a spark. Weak or strong your magics seem to be complimentary. Optimistically speaking the baby should survive." Of course Fred couldn't say that with certainty. 

Derek clung to Stiles tighter. 

"Werewolf pregnancies tend to have a shorter gestation than humans. Fetal viability is sooner as well. I'll make time to come see you once a week to keep an eye on the situation. Help plan for a premature birth. If you want this baby, Alpha, I will do what I can to ensure that it survives." 

Fred left soon after that. He gave instructions to eat lots of red meat, and to call if there were any odd pains or if the medicine didn't sit right. 

Stiles was quiet for a long time after that and Derek was too. He didn't know what to say. Didn't want to push Stiles into freaking out by bringing it up before he had time to process. 

Derek was starting to worry that Stiles was having regrets when he was still quiet almost half an hour later. But then he let out a long laugh and smacked himself in the chest. 

"Oh my god, that's just how our life's going to be isn't it? Fast paced and intense." Stiles laughed some more and Derek could agree with that. 

From the moment they met everything had been going so fast. They jumped right into bed, into 'marriage', and now having kids. And they've known each other maybe four months. 

"Sorry," Derek murmured. It really was his fault. If he had just been more aware of what it was he had been feeling when he first met Stiles things could have gone differently. 

Stiles just shook his head and put his arm around Derek's shoulder. Yeah this was fast and wild and any number of things but neither of them could deny what it made them feel. Quick didn't have to mean bad. 

"We might have to call my dad and explain a few things… I don't really want our kid to be born and everything without even knowing they were a possibility." He already felt bad that his dad hadn't gotten to meet Derek yet. Stiles was not about the let his dads grandbaby be born unannounced.

"Maybe we should wait. Just until Fred can give us more answers." Derek worried that telling John would jinx it. 

If they told and got excited now… it felt like it would be inevitable to lose the baby. Who wasn't even a baby baby yet. 

Stiles gave him a kiss.

"We can keep this between the two of us. We won't even tell Allison and her dad. I'll tell them you go some weird wolf bug and to get your strength back up you need lots and lots of red meat." Because with the amount that Stiles was about to go out and buy there would be questions since there was only one werewolf to feed. 

Derek had honestly forgot about the Argent's for a minute. It almost made him panic again just thinking about them. Intellectually he knew that they wouldn't hurt him and the baby… but his instincts still equated Kate to any Argent and Kate was always a threat. 

Feeling suddenly exposed, Derek stood up from the swing. 

"Derek?" Stiles questioned. He left the swing too. Derek walked right back into their cabin and started to check the windows. He made sure they were locked and then curled himself into bed, arms tight around the pillow. 

"Babe, what are you doing?" Stiles asked softly. Talking like he might spook Derek if he was too loud. Which he might. 

He had a fragile pup inside of him, on Argent territory, and Kate still out there. Their den was still new. None of it made him feel safe. Derek dragged the pillow closer to his stomach as if to hide it. 

"Derek… you heard the emissary dude. The baby is as strong as any other at this stage. It's going to be okay." Sure this wasn't like any other pregnancy probably ever. Sure it was super early, but that wasn't a reason to hide away. 

"Kate…" Derek's mumbled. He couldn't even finish voicing the thought. If Kate knew she would be thrilled to have one more thing to take away from him. 

Stiles made a sound of understanding and came to sit behind Derek. 

"I know that you're afraid, but you can't stay in bed all day. Fresh air, exercise, that's all good for a baby I'm sure. Besides. We're safe here on the ranch. From what Allison is saying people are catching on that Kate's a wild card they don't want to play with. She's running out of people that will work with her or for her. She doesn't have the manpower to come attack Allison and Chris directly." They had a new way of doing their hunting which meant a lot of the hunter families wouldn't work with them, but they established a large territory here. It was filled with wolf packs and other creatures who would fully back them. They weren't without hunter allies either. Allison said their new Argent branch was fifty strong. About a fourth of that settled here, and the rest spread throughout the country. Apparently she had cousins in France that took to their way too. 

They had more people than Kate could gather, so more force. If they stayed on the ranch, Kate couldn't get to them. 

"She doesn't have to be on the ranch to hurt us." An arrow, a gun, they had range. Derek knew this property was cut through on one side with trees so Kate would have to pass their security barrier to get into them to have covered shooting which would alert them, but there was plenty of flat land outside their alarms. 

Stiles himself was a worrier. He'd been dealing with anxiety and panic attacks since he was young. That did not mean however that he was any good at reassuring another worrier. 

"You weren't worried about that before." It didn't seem to have even crossed Derek's mind. 

"I wasn't pregnant before." And wow, was that not the weirdest thing Stiles had heard out loud. Good weird maybe. But still. 

"Look. I'm not going to force you to do anything, but Der, you're going to go bat shit if you hole up in this cabin." 

"I just want to sleep," Derek muttered and pulled the blankets tighter. Stiles wanted to call him on his lie but it didn't seem worth arguing over. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's more surprising than male pregnancy? Find out now!

"Derek really hates it here, huh?" Allison asked as she came to join Stiles picking veggies in the garden. They had been given free reign of it since there was so much and Stiles was absolutely taking advantage. Fresh tomatoes were awesome. 

"I wouldn't say hate," Stiles argued. It would probably be great if he wasn't pregnant and terrified. 

Allison frowned at that. Stiles had said Derek wasn't sick anymore, but it had been two weeks the Emissary had been twice more and Derek had not left the cabin that she was aware of. 

Stiles could see she wasn't believing him, but what else could he say? Derek swore him to secrecy about the baby. He was pretty inclined to agree. 

One, that was the love of his life asking and two, Chris didn't seem like he'd take a magical ass baby as anything but a bad omen. 

"He likes it, Allison. He says you grow good plants, and he wants a place like this when we're safe." They had done a lot of talking about that. 

Derek wanted a house like his parents had. Some place with lots of trees to run in, close enough to a town for school once the baby could control themselves. Not too far from a bigger city for the inevitable mall trip or night out to a theater or something. 

Apparently Derek was a sucker for theater. Not movies but like plays. He was a literary nerd and Stiles loved it. 

He was just terrified right now about so much and he wouldn't leave what Derek decided was the den and forbid Stiles from leaving the ranch. 

Allison already agreed to do supply runs for them, so that was good. 

"I don't want him to feel trapped. Dad already agreed that Derek could run the trees and everything. He just has to pay attention to the perimeter line but it's clearly marked. He wouldn't even mind a little hunting." Allison had been very good to them even if they were kept out of the step by step of whatever they were doing to fix the Kate problem. 

Stiles was fine with that mostly as he was really trying to get Derek to forget about the Kate part and come outside. 

He'd only succeeded once in the middle of the night but it wasn't enough. 

"He's just scared. He's worried that Kate can shoot into the property." Allison gave him a sad look. 

"She'd have to get close for that. This is flat land mostly but we've got a bit of high ground. It's unlikely." But Stiles knew that already. Explained it already. Fred had just terrified him even further by saying he felt an anomaly and when Stiles and Derek were arguing about Kate shooting in at them had piped in with, any amount of wolfsbane in a bullet even meant to just weaken Derek would abort the baby. 

It was a fucking mess. 

Not that he could explain that to Allison but she seemed a little more understanding. A little more sad too. 

"We're going to stop her, Stiles. I promise and then we will do everything we can to get you settled down somewhere." Allison would even buy them a house to try anything to make up for what her Aunt had done. 

She bumped shoulders with him and gave him a soft dimpled smile. "Maybe get you settled down in Beacon Hills? With your dad? I remember you saying once maybe you'd be his deputy." 

"Maybe, or maybe we'll go back to Derek's town. He didn't even get to see why his family was buried." Maybe he'd like to go back and reclaim the territory he was born in, and rebuild his life home. 

"It's up in the air. Derek just wants to get through the ba- bad stuff first." Jesus Stiles was not one to keep secrets. That wasn't even if first almost slip up about the baby. 

Allison just nodded and stood with her basket. "I'm making venison lasagna for dinner, I'll make one for you too. I'll leave it on the porch." 

Derek would like that at least. Deer had been something he'd been trying to talk Stiles into find for him as if Stiles had the skill to bring down a deer for him at all. 

He was just about to walk back to the cabin when he saw the dust kicking up in the distance of a car driving up. 

Fred's truck was pretty distinctive and Stiles went to open the gate for him. 

"What are you doing here man you were here like two days ago." Where he'd made Derek even more paranoid about going out. Which Stiles was pissed about. 

"I got that portable Ultrasound machine I was talking about. I want to check on that anomaly I found." Stiles might have been ticked off with Fred's big mouth but at least the guy was pretty invested. 

"I also have some things to set up in case of an emergency. Since we'll be delivering here and I'm worried premature birth is likely." Stiles had actually not been thinking much about the baby having to come out. How it was going to come out. And what they were supposed to do with a premature baby. 

Stiles chewed at his lip as he got into the truck that he drove all the way to the cabin this time. "Can you minimize the shit you freak him out about? I almost had him agreeing to night walks until your last visit." 

"Most wolves will take to their dens when pregnant. Usually in the later stages but Derek isn't exactly meant for this, even if I hadn't said anything it wasn't likely you would get him far from the den." Stiles clenched his jaw and decided to leave it. Fred had about zero filter, worse than Stiles even so he didn't waste his breath. 

This was definitely payback for all the times he never shut the fuck up though. Stiles just knew it. 

"How premature are we talking? You said werewolves gestation is shorter. Not dog short, but short." 

"18 weeks is when a werewolf fetus is viable. If they come before that there's not much anyone can do. They're simply not developed enough. Magic can do a lot but it's touchy when it comes to werewolves. They're magic themselves at their core and if the magics not compatible things can go wrong and there is not a lot of experimenting going on with what they can do to pups, you know? 

Fred parked at the cabin and pulled open the back of his truck. Stiles grabbed what he was told to, which was a couple of brown moving boxes. Fred grabbed the machine. 

"So. In about ten weeks we could have a baby." Unless Derek went into labor before then… god. Derek was already so attached, curled up around his bump that Stiles absolutely did not say looked like an exaggerated food baby. Even if it did. All Derek's muscles didn't seem to be yielding the way a woman's did exactly. Especially because he had been fucking shredded so it wasn't really looking pregnant, but more bloaty right now. 

Still so not something Stiles was about to say. He just coo'd at it and rubbed it while Derek smiled that sad sweet smile that didn't seem to go away. 

He loved this baby, he wanted this baby but Stiles knew Derek couldn't help but feel like any second he was going to lose it. Either from just not being enough to carry it as a male or because of Kate. 

Stiles was really starting to think killing someone might be damn easy. 

Fred let himself into the cabin and Derek didn't blinked at them. He looked half asleep still. Which was something he was doing a lot of. Stiles worried it was depression napping but Fred said it was fatigue. 

Fred went for the bed and the outlets beside it. Derek had reluctantly let the man into the den at first but now saw him as the savior of his pups so his presence didn't even raise the wolfs hackles. 

It was another reason Stiles wanted Fred to watch his God damned mouth because Derek was starting to take anything he said as gospel. 

"I'm pretty sure I haven't been asleep for a week," Derek mumbled as he tried to wake himself up more fully. Stiles smiled at the cuteness. 

"No, baby, Fred just brought something to look at the baby. To see what pinged his magic weird." Stiles assured him as he set the boxes down and joined him in the bed. 

"We're going to see the baby?" Derek asked, excitement filling his face. For all the sad smiles and fear the baby always got him excited. Even if it would have him angsty later. There was always a crash. 

"Yup," Fred popped the 'p'. He opened the laptop like box, tapped some of the keys, and turned the screen fully towards himself. 

"Lay flat and lift your shirt." Derek was quick to comply with the instructions. Fred was quick with the farty bottle of gel and the wand hooked into the laptop. 

He didn't seem exactly gentle about it but Derek wasn't complaining at all, just waiting eagerly. 

Fred was quiet for a maddening amount of time while they waited to see the baby and anxiously waited for him to say something was wrong. 

Only he laughed. 

Laughing was good? 

Even if Stiles wanted to punch him for it. 

"What the fuck man? What's up with our kid?" Derek swatted him against the chest and Stiles sent him a look. He got that Fred was the only professional their baby had but that didn't make him Jesus or whatever. 

"Nothing. Nothing's wrong exactly. You guys are just so fun. Look," he said tapping a button and then turning a blobby black and white screen at them. 

Stiles didn't know their kid was supposed to look so… abstract?

"This," Fred said poking one lump, "is a baby and this," he poked the second lump on the screen, "is a baby." He laughed again and Stiles was just sort of short circuiting. 

"This too- ha, three should I say? Is also a baby." Fred finished tapping the third blobby on the screen. He tapped the button on the screen and the blobs started to move. 

There were arms. There were fucking arms. 

"What the fuck," Stiles squeaked. Three babies. Not one little weird butt baby his werewolf forever husband was having. Three weird little butt babies his werewolf forever husband was having. 

Derek was just staring. Stiles head snapped with a double take when it looked like Derek might have stopped breathing. 

But then Derek was crying. 

"Derek… baby… I don't know what to say." Stiles didn't know if he should be consoling Derek or celebrating with him. He couldn't tell if they were freaked out tears like Stiles had been about to burst into before seeing Derek snapped him out of it or happy tears that Derek was getting a whole litter.

Oh fuck that was not something he was ever going to repeat out loud. 

Derek just cried and cupped his goopy belly. The image on the screen went wonky and then cut off when Fred took the wand away. 

"Identical triplets. Congrats. That's what was weird. Sometimes with identicals this early the presences mask each other, because they're so similar. That was the anomaly I felt. Guess I'll have to bring more supplies." Fred moved to said supplies that he had had Stiles carry in. Two large moving boxes that had actually been kind of heavy so he left them both by the door. 

Stiles used the sheet from the bed to clean up Derek's belly before the goop got even colder in the air conditioning. 

"Does this mean he's going to deliver even sooner?" Stiles had always heard multiples came a bit early. Fred seemed optimistic that the baby was going to make it to werewolf full term but now there were three.

"Yes probably closer to 20 weeks if all goes well. I'd start buying stuff. Maybe speak to your hosts." Fred cut open one box and started pulling out metal wheely legs and then a plastic bassinet with a thin mattress pad. 

Stiles remembered seeing something similar at the hospital when he would wander towards the maternity ward. He liked seeing the new happy life when he was feeling smothered by his mother's slow decaying. 

This one had a sort of table under the bassinet with a lip wide enough to put things on, and some sigils already carved into it. Probably the magic version of oxygen monitors and stuff. To tell Fred of things were going bad for the baby. 

"I don't have three of these so I'll have to order another two, but it should all be here in time. Don't open this other box, and keep it out of the sun and dry. It has herbs and things I'll need during delivery." Stiles just nodded, still perched on the bed, stroking his mate who was finally calming down. 

"Three. Three pups." He breathed sounding reverent. It wasn't just three pups, it was three betas. Three bets and a mate. Derek had such a full pack. 

"You know it's widely believed that a pack reaches stability with a minimum of three betas. Kind of funny you ended up with triplets." Fred chuckled. 

Stiles was not in a place to laugh about the fact they had three babies to take care of. Not when they didn't have a house or jobs and weren't going to have them for an unknown length of time. 

God, how were they going to feed them? Derek only had two nips and Stiles still wasn't sure how good they were going to be at making milk.

Stiles nips certainly were not going to be pitching in. 

"We should lea-"

"Swear to god, Derek if you say we should leave I'm going to scream. That super can't be your answer for everything." Stiles groaned and smacked himself in the face. 

"It's not sa-" Stiles cut him off with an even louder groan. 

"Nowhere is safe, but we're safest here and we're not going on the run with you pregnant with three little people!" 

Derek pouted and pulled the blanket up back around himself. He didn't trust the Argent's even if Allison was painfully nice and hard to hate. Chris was hard and cold and Derek didn't want him finding out about the babies. 

Fred set the bassinet off to the side of the room out of the way. 

"With this many babies might I suggest reusable diapers? I suggest them to all my new parents anyways but your cost of diapers is going to be wildly different than theirs." Stiles groaned again. He hadn't even thought about the fact they would have triple diaper duty yet. He'd still only really thought about it in the abstract for one baby. 

They'd need three of everything. 

Derek seemed nervous the more that Stiles groaned. 

"Do you regret… " Derek wasn't even sure what to ask. Do you regret the babies? Mating to me? Meeting me at all? 

Derek was pretty sure he didn't want to know the answer to any of that. Especially if the answer was yes. 

Stiles hurried to crawl over Derek and cup his face, kiss him fully on the mouth. 

"Don't ever think that. This is crazy like super crazy and fast and just fucking wild but I'm pretty sure I'm super in love with you and yeah okay. Maybe I would have liked to be a little more prepared for kids but I love kids, and I love our kids. I love your baby gut.” Derek made a face at that but seemed to relax over all. 

“So see you later,” Fred said as he made his escape. “Don’t go anywhere!” He added as he shut the cabin door. Maybe this one time Stiles would accept Derek taking Fred’s word as law. 

Now that he knew there were going to be three babies here in just about twelve weeks their cozy cabin didn’t seem so cozy. The medical bassinet that Fred brought while in the corner took up a bit of space and there were going to be two more added and waiting. 

Their own bassinets or even three cribs were going to take up so much space. 

Stiles didn’t even see a big enough space for three cribs without them getting rid of their entire ‘livingroom’ area.

That didn’t even take into account that they were going to need a changing table, and a dresser for all those little baby clothes and cloth diapers they were going to get into. 

Cloth diapers were close to giving him dry heaves but yeah they did seem more practical when there were three babies to account for. Diapers were expensive enough as is and formula was like doubly so. 

“We’ll tell the Argent’s that they need to hurry up this Kate business… and if it starts to look like they can't we need to tell them." They were going to find out once the babies were here. Stiles would be doing a lot of laundry probably all the time cleaning diapers and outfits because babies were a mess. 

They would hear the babies crying too inevitably, and they'd have to give a good reason why absolutely no one at all should even come close to the den. 

"I don't want to be here," Derek murmured and Stiles just kissed him. 

"I know. You're scared, your den isn't really your den. You want a place you feel wholly safe. And we'll have that. We're going to get that." Soon Kate wouldn't be a threat and they could build that all. Maybe not before the babies were born but after. 

Derek wiggled until he was on his side and moved out of the middle of the bed. He patted the mattress beside him for Stiles to join. 

Too many things seemed to be out of his control. Running might not be possible but at least on the run he could pretend like he knew what was happening. He knew the rules. This was new and strange and so out there none of his carefully made rules of survival applied and it threw him. 

"How do we tell them we need to move some furniture out of here without being weird?" Derek asked, coming to the same conclusion as Stiles that if they were going to have to be here with their babies for a while they would need to eliminate their living room area for a 'nursery'. 

"We need space for wild sex? A sex swing!" Stiles laughed. 

"That's being weird." 

"Gosh, you're no fun, anything we can tell them is going to be weird. Especially with you already barricading yourself in here. The only thing not weird is the truth. Well I mean the truth is pretty weird, the male pregnancy bit, you know the surprise triplets, but needing to clear out the living room for a nursery is not weird." 

Derek really didn't want to tell them still even if he rationally knew they wouldn't do anything to them… it was just hard to completely unlearn the instinctive distrust of all Argent's. Even with Allison constantly being so Disney princess perfect and sweet. 

But he was already eight weeks along, leaving at least ten weeks maybe before they had pups. Ten weeks was nothing. Kate had been doing this to him for years she wouldn't just go down easy. He couldn't expect her to be taken down in ten weeks could he? 

The Argents really would notice eventually. Especially with Fred still coming weekly. They had to be suspicious of something.

Werewolf hunters had to know there was hardly any reasons a wolf needed a doctor(or equivalent). Derek certainly wasn't poisoned and Fred certainly wasn't someone to dispense therapy so eventually despite how impossible the conclusion might seem they would come to it. 

"Maybe… if you tell them Allison will make those brownies more…" Derek tried reaching for the positive. Though a small part of him was sure that Chris would be in here to get rid of them. 

Stiles beamed at the effort. 

"Allison is going to be so pleased I'm sure she'll start baking them and never stop if it makes you happy." All Allison seemed to want was for Derek to be happy here while they tried to help. 

"Get your laptop? I want to look at baby things." They were staying in one place, Kate would figure out where they were, spending his money or not so he didn't see why he shouldn't spend it and buy some baby things for delivery. His family would have liked the money spent on pups. 

Stiles was so very pleased about that. Baby clothes were the cutest.

"This means we're telling right? Because if we're ordering baby things they need to store this furniture elsewhere." Derek just smiled and adjusted to sit up in bed. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kate couldn't stay away forever. Here's where the violence comes. I don't think it's too graphic but be warned, Stiles takes some shit.

Allison was exactly as pleased as Stiles knew she would be. Okay. She was more pleased than he thought she could be, absolutely thrilled. Allison squeals and cries and talks about how beautiful their babies are going to be. 

She didn't question if it was a joke, what with both of them being very male. She didn't even really ask questions, and just started gushing about finally learning to knit now that she had good incentive. Baby booties were the cutest apparently. 

Derek's belly got cooed at and he was promised anything he was craving, anything at all. A werewolf was hungry enough, a werewolf pregnant with triplets exponentially so. Anything might be more than Allison was expecting and Stiles just smiled at how sheepish Derek looked. 

Despite all his insistence that he didn't trust Argent's, Derek didn't seem nervous at all about one making baby voices at what actually looked like a good bump today. 

That seemed to have happened over night. 

After Allison had hurried off to get started on dinner that they absolutely had to come up to the house for (and Derek looked like he was ready to accept if brownies were involved), Chris had wandered over. 

Derek stiffened a little in his spot while Stiles practiced out a lullaby on Stella. There wasn't a scent of wolfsbane in the air, not even the usual gunpowder, but this was still Chris. His face looked as hard as always. 

But he stopped on the step of the porch, and nodded his head to Derek. 

They hadn't really talked. Derek being isolated in the house practically the entire time. The few times they had seen each other, Chris always had this look before his eyes darted away.

Derek had a feeling he remembered the pictures, the pictures of Kate and clearly a young teenage Derek. Remembered the pictures he undoubtedly looked up of his burned family. Derek didn't really mind that Chris didn't know how to look at him for long. 

"I'll put her down, you don't have to worry about her anymore." Chris promised and Derek realized it was the first time either of them had said it. 

Obviously they wanted to stop Kate. She was family though, and even sick it was hard to kill family. 

Derek swallowed the lump in his throat. These people chose him over family. Believed him. Wanted to make him and his pups safe…

"Thank you." He whispered and Chris just nodded again and went off to do Chris things. Derek wasn't sure exactly what those were. Stiles loved to speculate. 

"They're good people, Derek. We can't help where we come from." Stiles said as he continued his soft deep notes. He'd said something similar the entire time they'd been here. 

It looked like Derek was starting to believe it though. 

"Dinner sounds good." Derek said. Stiles smiled at him even when on the inside he was bursting. 

This would be the first time Derek went further than the porch since they found out about the baby(ies). 

Next thing on the list was to get him taking walks in the woods. But, baby steps. Dinner with Allison and her dad was big enough right now. 

"Hey. I got a notification on my phone. The cribs we ordered got held up at the post office and they want us to pick it up. Apparently their rinky little mail cars don't do well on the roads." Stiles sat Stella aside and moved to join Derek. 

Apparently they'd come to an agreement, the Argent's and the post office, to have everything delivered to the shop in town. To save their three little cars the stress of the roads out to the ranch. 

They couldn't fit three cribs in the mail slot. Packages got picked up at the office. Which was just slightly annoying. 

"Do you have to pick it up?" Derek asked nervously. He hadn't let Stiles leave the ranch the same way he hadn't left the den either. He might have agreed to a dinner at the big house but that wasn't way out of their safety zone. 

"Our names are on the package I don't think they'll release it to Allison or her dad." Derek frowned deeply. He didn't want Stiles going. It wasn't like at the loft where it only took twenty minutes to run to the grocery store. 

It took longer than that just to get to the town. But… it was their cribs. For their pups. That Derek was already having an intense need to nest for. 

"Just, go quickly? With one of the Argent's. Chris. Allison is making dinner." Stiles smiled and kissed him in agreement before grabbing his wallet. 

"I'll be back before dinner. Probably even soon enough to start putting it together." Derek was pleased enough by that idea that he didn't even whimper as Stiles went to leave the territory. 

He would be with Chris, in broad daylight in the middle of town. It would be fine.

Stiles woke up with a gasping cough. Someone had thrown extremely cold water over him. He struggled to wipe his face only to find that his arms were tied behind him to the chair he was sitting on. 

"Finally, you woke up." A gravelly female voice said behind him and Stiles struggled to look. Not that he knew why. He knew who this was. Who the fuck else was going to kidnap him?

"Kate," Stiles bit out. She laughed and swung around his chair to face him. 

"Awe, he talked about me. How sweet, does puppy miss his mommy?" Kate singsonged. Stiles tried to jerk his hands free again. 

"I mean you're old but you're on that old. Still too old to be fucking teenage boys you vicious cunt." Stiles spit at her, tried to spit at her. He always sucked at spitting and he really regretted that now. 

It was very dissatisfying to have it fall short of her stupid face.

Kate just laughed some more before holding up some sort of clicker and hitting a button. 

Stiles seized and choked as the electricity hit him. 

He couldn't even say he didn't piss himself. 

It only made Kate laugh harder. She finally let go of the button after what felt like hours but was likely not even a minute. His whole everything hurt and it was hard to catch his breath. 

"You should try being a little nicer, I'm doing you a favor, you know. Not killing you. I thought you would make better bait. Bring my puppy home where he belongs. Where he deserves to be punished. I might change my mind about killing you if you keep being rude." 

Stiles bit his tongue. Both literally and figuratively. He could taste the blood from where he bit when she electrocuted him. He also held in his retort. 

Kate was going to kill him no matter what now that she had him. She had killed people that Derek had barely interacted with just because it would hurt him. 

He was bait for sure. Bait to bring Derek to her, so he could watch Stiles die too. 

But Kate didn't know. She didn't know about the babies. If she did she would have said something by now. 

So she didn't know that no matter what. Derek wasn't going to show. Stiles didn't even feel bad about that. 

He was pissed and scared and just wanted to be in the cabin with Derek and the babies, but. He was glad at least. That Kate wasn't going to get what she wanted. 

"So. We're going to make a call to your big bad wolf. You're going to say nice and pretty 'Please Derek, please save me, don't kill me too'," Kate beamed as she pulled out Stiles own phone. 

Thank God he'd locked all his photos of Derek and the peas in a password folder. He hadn't wanted it to be easy for a normal person to see some very not normal shit. 

While Kate was absolutely not normal, Stiles still didn't want her ever knowing about the babies. His peas in a pod. Derek still hadn't warmed up to that name. 

"I'm not saying that, Kate. I'm not asking him to come to your trap." 

"Fine, just make the right noises then." Kate said and then hit call. 

Derek had been too happy to be really anxious when Stiles first left. 

He just kept looking at the large empty area where the Argent's had taken all the furniture and stored it in their basement. 

They were going to take all three cribs and make a super crib. Wolves were tactile. Pups didn't do well sleeping apart when they were multiples. So they were going to put two of them together with three side and on with only the short sides, but them together, use a bit of welding to get them secure and then send away for a custom mattress to put in it. 

Derek was thinking dreamily about the pups wiggling themselves together into a little pile, grabbing each other, and snuffling their siblings pack scent. 

The imagery could only hold him for so long though and when an hour went by he got nervous. He sent a text to Stiles but it didn't ever say read. 

And he would know because he stared at it for a solid twenty minutes before he made his way to the porch. He sat there in his spot, straining his hearing and not getting a hint of the sound of Chris’ SUV. They should have been coming home by now. 

A deep pit of dread opened up in his belly and Derek gasped when he felt something wiggle. It felt like flip flopping goldfish maybe. It could only be his pups and Derek wanted to cry because Stiles wasn’t here for it and something just wasn’t right. 

Derek stood to pace. Stiles promised to be quick. It was a little town, how long could a line at the post office be? Sure the cribs were going to be big but they were disassembled, so fairly flat. In Chris’ SUV with the seats down they should have had it packed up and on the way home. 

Yet he couldn’t hear the car at all. 

Derek growled in frustration as he hurried down the steps. Stiles had the Argent’s numbers, he didn’t have any of them. Not even Allison’s to ask her to call her dad. 

The pit of dread got deeper as he hurried across the property to the big house. He could hear Allison inside still preparing dinner, could smell the brownies that she had started to make first. 

The house wasn’t lined with mountain ash in the foundation. He could see it in the windows and they probably had something to set the doors with too, but it was all open. Even though Derek hadn’t left the cabin they had left their house open for him. 

Trusting him. 

Derek hurried inside and into the kitchen, slightly relieved to be out of the open. Very relieved actually as he set himself down at the kitchen table. Allison seemed a little startled but pleased all the same. Until she saw the look on Derek’s face. 

“What’s wrong? Is it the baby? Have you called Fred?” Allison rushed to ask. Derek felt a swell of affection for her. How was he supposed to hate a dimpled angel that was so concerned for his family?

“Something’s wrong. They should have been back by now, and Stiles didn’t answer my message. He should have answered.” Stiles wouldn’t have left with a phone that was dead. He wouldn’t have made it so Derek couldn’t contact him. He wouldn’t do that when Derek was stressed enough. 

Allison hurried to snatch her phone off the counter. She was just about to pull up her father’s contact info when Derek’s phone began to ring. 

He hurried to answer it when he saw that it was Stiles name flashing on the screen. 

“What have you been doing?” Derek hurried to say, ready to tie Stiles to their bed so he couldn’t pull something stupid like this again when they were being hunted. 

“Playing with my new toy,” she said. Ice flushed through Derek’s veins. His heart stuttered hard and Derek thought he would be sick right there. 

Kate. 

Kate called him. From Stiles phone…

“Don’t- Kate, don’t-” Derek couldn’t even make the words come. He was reeling, his babies were tickling his insides. Stiles was dead. Stiles was gone- 

He had to hurry to the sink to be sick and from the laughter coming from the phone, Kate knew he what he was doing. She could probably hear the retching. 

“Derek, puppy, don’t you want to come see me? I’ve been looking all over for you, and you’ve been so difficult. I don’t want to have to punish your little friend, but well,” She moved to set the phone down on speaker. Derek heard the click, and then footsteps. 

“Don’t touch me bitch,” Derek could hear Stiles say. 

Then there was the sound of something being hit, a choked off scream. Kate hissed something that Derek couldn’t understand because his heart was beating so hard in his ears. Another hit came and this time the scream was loud. 

"I can do this to him all day, puppy. Do you think he can last that long though? He is so damned fragile and he doesn't even heal. Maybe I'll let you bite him before you and I have our fun. It might be all that saves him."

Derek didn't believe even for a moment that she would let Stiles go. Especially not after he bit him. Hunters like Kate didn't believe wolves could truly make a pack bond with a human. She probably wanted him to turn Stiles just to kill him. Breaking a bond was a special kind of torture.

Stiles didn't need to be a wolf for that to still be true.

He cupped his belly and tried to keep from crying. Kate would love to hear that. 

"I'll make it easy on you okay? I won't make you waste time sniffing him out. I'll give you our location and you get here ASAP. I have a little frustration that needs working out and who knows how long your friend will last waiting for you-

"Derek! Don't! Don't you-" Stiles cut off with a scream and Derek could feel it now, echoing down the bond. She had to be really hurting him. 

Derek could only whimper. 

This wasn't like him. The old him. 

By now he should have been angry, damn near feral in rage and biting to face her to save the person she took. They'd never played this game before she never used someone else to draw him out. Left bodies for him to find yes but she never made a trap like this. 

Derek had never exactly been hiding before though. 

Only now, now he wasn't exactly who he used to be. There were three other passengers on board and where he should be boiling with rage he was drowning in hurt fear. 

Kate was going to kill Stiles. And there was nothing he could do about it. 

Allison caught him as he started to sink to the floor. At least her face looked thunderous. Dark determination in her glare. 

"Don't take too long puppy. And come alone. I'd hate to have to kill my niece. Quivering child that she is." Then the call went dead and Derek couldn't stop himself from sobbing now.

Everything had been happening so fast they'd dived into so much… and yet it wasn't enough but it was gone. 

Kate had him. Kate was hurting him, and she wasn't one to leave survivors. 

Allison looked like she was going to say something when Derek's phone pinged with a message and her phone went off with a call. 

She took Derek's phone and went to answer her own. 

"Dad! Where- I know that!" She hissed into the phone. Derek tuned her out, curling up on himself the best he could with his ever growing belly. 

The pups were moving wildly. It was like they could feel their daddy in distress and we're frantic to comfort him. 

It was maybe the only thing that was going to keep him alive when his mate died.

His mate…

A hand on his shoulder startled him. Allison, princess Allison looked like a hunter matriarch now. Her eyes were hard, and her posture changed. He'd never guess this was the dimpled goddess of goodness. 

Derek was glad of that. She looked like she could kill someone. Derek desperately wanted her to. 

"She's been waiting for Stiles to come to town to grab him. When they got in, dad went to the shop. They didn't think Kate would drive up, cattle prod Stiles in front of the post office and drag him into her car in broad daylight." Allison explained as she urged him up and to a chair. Derek was absently grateful. 

"The sheriff's office is off their shit and holding dad for a statement, but I'm going to go. It's better that I go. Kate doesn't think much of me. She won't expect me to do anything to her. I'll get Stiles back. I'll bring him home and I'll put a bullet between her eyes." 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yeah maybe this gets anticlimactic? But I didn't see why I needed to draw it out. I've always hated the whole villain monologue and hero crisis and deciding not to shoot BS so yeah. She shoots.

A gun wasn't Allison's preferred weapon but she was as skilled with it as she was her bow. 

She went downstairs to their armory as she liked to call it and started to put herself together. Sturdy boots with a hunting knife inside. Ankle holster with a drop gun. Thigh holster with her pistol, and on the other thigh, a holster for her extra clips. 

She moved out of the house without a goodbye or more promises. She just grabbed the keys to her car and took off. 

Aunt Kate used to be the woman Allison wanted to be when she grew up. Before she knew about the supernatural and hunters.

Before she knew that all she knew was that her aunt was a successful confident, sexy woman who didn't take shit and ruled over men. 

That was something a kind of shy, barely had a boyfriend because of over protective parents kind of girl aspired to. 

When she had been introduced to the supernatural and what their family really was she had failed her Aunties test. Kate went from almost a sister to someone that looked down on her. 

Allison didn't measure up to the ruthless cold blooded killer, exterminator that Kate wanted her to be. Her father had been pissed about what Kate had tried to make Allison do and cut all ties with her. Forbid her from seeing Allison again. 

She didn't know that her father had trained her to follow the code and be deadly with a bow. That she could fight hand to hand with Hunter men over twice her size and win. 

She didn't know that she wasn't that soft girl who really didn't want to kill anything, monster or not. Sure it went around that Allison was the matriarch. But it also went around about their new code.

To Kate, Allison was weak. To Kate, Allison wouldn't pull the trigger. 

To Kate, Allison was deadly. She was ruthless. She was a killer, and Kate was her new prey. 

Consciousness was a hard thing to keep hold of. Stiles tried. He tried to stay awake, because he needed to know. 

He needed to know that Derek didn't come. 

Someone would. There was no way that Derek wouldn't tell the Argent's about the call. 

So the Argent's were coming, and maybe they wouldn't kill Kate today, but even if it was the last thing he saw he needed to see that Derek didn't come with them. 

He needed to know Kate didn't get his mate and his pups before he died. 

Because she really wanted Stiles dead. 

When the phone had cut out, she'd picked up some rod she must have found lying around and she hit him with it. Over and over.

There was a lot of blood, and a lot of things felt broken.

He wanted to curl up and let the darkness in the edges of his vision take it all, but the damn chair held him up. 

It was the only thing that did. 

Kate looked satisfied enough. She wanted Stiles beat so bad Derek would actually bite him. 

If Derek was coming, her certainly would. 

Stiles didn't think he would die in the next couple hours or so, but she shattered a couple bones, and blunt force trauma was a hell of a thing. If Derek saw him, he would bite him. 

Biting could kill him but so could waiting to get to a hospital. Probably with the same likelihood. 

But Derek wasn't coming. 

Stiles didn't know how much time passed between the call and hearing the rusty door to the warehouse open. 

He had blacked out a couple times, snapping back to consciousness looking around desperately. 

Kate cocked her gun and held it on him. Stiles was a very good hostage. 

"I didn't ask for you Ally cat. I think I very specifically asked him not to bring you." Kate hissed and Stiles did his best to see out of his one unswollen eye. 

That really was Allison. Stiles couldn't help but grin. Good. Derek stayed back at the Ranch. 

Chris wasn't around that Stiles could see, and he worried dimly that Kate must have killed him before snatching Stiles… but really he was too focused that Derek was still safe. 

Their babies were still safe. 

Stiles blinked trying to clear the blood from his vision. He wanted to say 'kill her, Allison' or 'don't let the villain monologue!' but his tongue was fat and dumb. 

Allison didn't really leave him a chance though. She just pulled her own gun from somewhere Stiles blurred vision couldn't tell. Kate had just started laughing to mock her, to tell Allison something cliché.

Allison just pulled the trigger with deadly accuracy.

Stiles tried to laugh about it, to cheer. All that came out was a weird gurgle. 

He didn't see too much of a reason to claw at consciousness. 

So he didn't. 

Derek sat in the big houses porch, watching the gate. His phone was clenched in his hand. 

Allison had left, Chris hadn't come back, Stiles was out there.

And he was all alone. There was the pups but they had stilled. They had moved so much that now they were asleep and all Derek wanted was for them to move again. 

So he didn't have to think about how at any second the stressed bond between him and their father could snap at any second. 

Allison must have confronted Kate by now. But she hadn't called. Chris hadn't called. 

Just as he had the thought his phone rang and Derek nearly jumped out of his skin. He fumbled as he accepted the unknown caller. 

"Hello? Allison?" Derek heard the tears in his voice. It wasn't Allison who called though. 

"It's Chris. I just got out of questioning with the police. I'm going to be coming now to get you and take you to the hospital." Derek felt his heart flip flop. 

The bond was still holding in his chest. 

"Stiles… he's-"

"Alive. She beat him pretty bad but he was breathing when they put him in the ambulance. Just be dressed I'll be there soon." 

"Kate?" Derek managed to ask, heart beating hard as he got to his feet. Stiles was alive. He was going to a hospital… but was this really over?

"She's dead, Derek. Allison killed her. She's not coming back for you." Chris promised softly and then reminded Derek to be ready before hanging up. 

It seemed… unreal. After all these years, all the people he lost, all the times Kate almost got him and she was gone. 

He didn't have to run anymore.

It was over. 

It was really over. They could leave anywhere, live anywhere. No one would be coming for their children. 

Derek couldn't help the sobs that pulled from him. Purely from relief. He had been holding all this tension for years and it released all at once. 

It was freedom. 

Stiles looked awful. He looked half dead, even if the doctors promised that they stabilised him. They'd have to take him in to surgery to put his knee back together, his arm. Some of his ribs were fractured, some fingers broken, his orbital socket too. But he was going to live. 

Kate beat him to hell but he was alive. The wolf in him was preening over his strong mate, and the alpha furious and scared and desperate to bite. 

Surgeries could go wrong. People died on the table all the time. The body could only handle so much trauma and Stiles had already had a lot. 

"I could turn you…" Derek whispered to him. Stiles was still unconscious and the doctors didn't expect him to wake up with the pain meds in him. 

"We never talked about it. What to do. We should have talked about it." Surgery could kill him, but it also might not. He would heal, he wouldn't be like he was but he would heal. 

If Derek bit him he could reject it and die. Or he could start to heal. Everything would heal, and he'd never maybe walk with a limp. He'd never maybe be blind in his eye. 

Chris was ready to pay someone to help him smuggle Stiles out once he bit him. If he did. 

Derek wanted to. 

He just didn't know if Stiles would want it. 

He probably wouldn't want his arm busted to shit and fingers twisted. Not when he played such beautiful melodies on the cello. 

He'd probably want to run after their pups. 

Derek rubbed his belly as he thought. But then he picked up Stiles arm, the one that wasn't fucked and brought his wrist to his teeth. 

He could go back and forth on it all night but if Stiles could be healed and whole in hours… how could that be the wrong choice? 

He shifted, and he bit. 

When Stiles woke up, at first he thought it was all a nightmare. He could see the familiar ceiling of the cabin, he was in their warm bed, but then everything roared to life. 

The scents were so strong and everything was so loud. He could hear the low undercurrent of electricity, just a background noise. There were heart beats, the washer at the big house was unbalanced. 

Stiles had thought this place had been so quiet before. Way out here on acres of land, that was quiet. 

Now he heard everything he was missing. He was damn sure it was still quiet because it wasn't driving him crazy but it was freaking him out a little. 

Derek was there in a hurry, kneeling beside the bed next to him. 

He looked like he hadn't slept very well. Stiles could smell something… off in his scent. He couldn't name it what it smelled like or what it meant. Instinct told him it was bad and he needed to fix it. So he leaned over the edge, wrapping arms around Derek's neck. 

Derek had a rich spiced nectar scent. Like sweet ripe fruit and cinnamon maybe. It made him this of the babies so Stiles held tighter. 

"I'm so sorry-" Derek tried to start but Stiles shushed him. Nothing about this deserved an apology. 

"I'm okay. I'm right here, nothing hurts." He actually felt pretty good. 

"I bit you." Derek clarified as if Stiles didn't get it. 

"I can tell, but it's okay. Am I really supposed to be mad you made me heal fast, super strong and like just over all hella cool? I thought I was dead for sure, Derek. Anything's better than that." It had been what Kate wanted Derek to do but Stiles was glad for it.

"It's been four days, I thought you were going to die too." Derek had never heard of someone unconscious that long as they turned. 

"Fred came. He said that your magic was just deciding on letting the wolf in. We're compatible magics but your magic still wasn't wolf. Then you had a lot of damage to heal. Shattered bones get tricky apparently.

"But you did. Accept it, the wolf. I can smell it and you're all healed. It was still… I really thought you'd reject it." Derek's voice stuttered. Seeing someone he loved reject the bite once was enough. 

Stiles pulled back to kiss him. 

"I'm okay, Der, and it's over. Allison did it. She killed her." Kate was never coming back. She was the kind of crazy even other hunters didn't want to touch so no one was coming back to finish her job. 

Derek smiled. While Stiles was unconscious he had had a lot of time to think about that fact. Chris had gone down to the morgue and took a picture of her so Derek could see. Then he told them to cremate her and throw the ashes away. 

"I called your dad. I thought he should know everything know how you're doing. He was pretty mad for a minute until I told him about the babies. He was all goo after that." Stiles couldn't help but laugh. 

"I bet he was. So. What now?" Did they stay here on the ranch, go back to the loft? Something else? Probably something else since there were three kids coming to think of. The loft wasn't built for that. 

"Hold on. I'll show you." Derek seemed more excited than Stiles had ever seen him as he got himself off the floor and over to the laptop. 

Stiles watched with vision that was wildly clear. Had he really needed glasses that badly before? He knew that he didn't have perfect vision and there had been some suggestions about visiting an optometrist but he had to have been in deep denial. 

Derek laughed as he settled back on the bed. 

"You look like an owl." Which Stiles was sure was accurate. He felt a little wide eyed marveling at his new sight. 

"The wolf vision helps sure, but yeah. You were for sure getting kind of near sighted baby." Derek had watched him squint at shit all the time. 

Watched him take death defying turns because he couldn't read the street name till the last second. Derek just didn't think he needed to say anything when Stiles seemed to be determined to live blind. 

"Yeah yeah, just show me the goods." Stiles rolled his eyes, nudging into Derek with his shoulder. He settled with the laptop on his lap and angled towards Stiles. 

"I started looking into houses near your dad. I thought that you would like being close to family and… I would too." Stiles dad was really the only family either of them had that wasn't currently gestating. 

"Fred says we should stay here until I deliver and we're all cleared to travel but I didn't want us house hunting while figuring out newborn care with three infants so here." 

On the screen Derek had six listings opened. Stiles took his time to read through them all. They were decent, some were obviously starter houses that they wouldn't be in forever since they were only two and three bedrooms. There was also obviously one that Derek truly wanted but just wanted to give Stiles less heart rending prices to look at. 

Because it was expensive. It was worth more than all of Stiles organs combined on the black market. 

Probably because it had acres and acres of preserve land attached to it and was six bedrooms three and a half baths with a detached garage. It was a freaking mansion and it was not the sort of house Stiles would ever even dream of living in. Or even breathing on. 

But Derek was the alpha. He wanted to provide and this was certainly providing. 

There was plenty of room for them, and room to grow not that Fred said this would be a repeat performance. 

Still. Each kid would want their own room eventually he was sure, and a guest room for his father would be nice and who could say. Maybe they would adopt or Derek would bite another beta. 

"It's perfect, Derek. Really. But where will we fit the Super-Crib?" He opened the listing more fully and the rooms were decently sized he supposed but the super crib was going to take up practically the whole of their cabin living room. 

"There's room in this one, with an ensuite. I mean just barely when we put it up against the wall here and there won't be space for much else but it'll fit." Derek then went on to say how he had already put in an offer not that he'd heard back about it. He said it was too good to not put in on. Not with all those trees to run in. 

Stiles just smiled and kissed him. 

"Let's hope we get our home." 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pretty short last chapter but here's the girls and a little epilogue.

Laurel Lee, Klavdiya Rose, Natalia Sabine were born at 12 am, 12:02 and 12:06 respectively. They are ruddy, wrinkled, screaming things that Stiles is in love with on sight. 

Derek is crying as they wiggle on his chest where they have been laid after Fred has cut them out. 

He takes the weird uterus thing they lived in out as well before working his magic. 

Their girls were supposed to be early but they like their fathers are stubborn, and like Stiles usually, pretty late. 

They came so late Fred doesn't think they'll need half the runes for premature babies that are ready on their cots. 

Derek is sobbing laughing when he realizes that Natalia is hairier than the other two. She's got a dark happy trail to her little butt crack that's a little more fur than hair. 

The other two Laurel and Klavdiya are fuzzed but Natalia has that one patch that's thick. 

Stiles joins him in the laughing. He already knows he's going to be calling her fuzzy butt. 

They're all identical except for that fuzz and that Laurel is bigger than Klavdiya and Natalia. At least it won't be too hard to tell them apart. 

Though they have bought green, blue and yellow color coded outfits to try and keep track until they're bigger and it's even easier. 

"They're perfect." Stiles breathes. He will admit that for how strange getting them has been he maybe expected them to come out looking how they do when they're half shifted. 

Instead they are pouty mouthed, dark haired angels. 

Fred patches Derek up to finish healing on his own and takes the girls one at a time to be measured, weighed and checked. 

They are returned with clamped stumps, and diapers, the correct colored hats on them all. 

They weigh in at six and five pounds. Tiny tiny things but for triplets in a body never meant to house them it's amazing. 

"I've got pink girls, with healthy lungs, the whole shebang. I'm going to activate these monitoring runes and I'm gonna stay up at the big house for today until tomorrow. Enjoy your family." Fred said before he left them. 

Stiles cleaned up the bed, basically just getting the gross sheets and rubber cover out from under Derek and then joined him in the bed to look at them. 

They're calm, and rooting around on Derek's chest so they will have to make bottles in a moment, but Stiles just wants to soak up this moment some more. 

It happened so fast like a blink, but he couldn't imagine his life being anything but this. 

Derek has stopped sobbing and looks exhausted as he should but he just looks so awed. Worshipful. 

These girls were his pups, his pack was four strong. And all his. No one was taking them. 

"Take pictures for your dad. I'm sure he's waiting they've been past due." Their house was all bought and paid for. John had helped on that side to get it done, and made sure it was cleaned and set up. 

They'd shipped the unopened cribs there so John was going to assemble them into the Super-Crib for them. 

The Jeep also had to be sacrificed. Well not exactly. It would go home to Beacon Hills with them. Allison would drive it down with them and fly back but it was old. There weren't any carseat latches, and when they had tried to put all three bases in the backseat it just didn't work. 

They had a shiny new 'soccer mom SUV'. As dubbed by Stiles. At least it had a good suspension and space so they weren't getting whiplash. 

Stiles was only kind of pouting about it still. 

John woke up to his phone buzzing as dozens of images came pouring in. Even ones that he probably could have lived his whole life without seeing. 

Derek gutted was not something he'd be passing around the office. 

His three adorable grandbabies most certainly were. 

He teared up at the names. 

He and Claudia had both come from Polish families. They'd both been born named complicatedly and had adopted American versions. The same way Stiles was Stiles and not Mieczyslaw. 

Claudia had been born Klavdiya and he had been born Janeczek. 

He loved seeing her name on their grandchild. 

He wondered if he'd get his turn. Grandsons were obviously expected too. 

"That's my old man for you, give him three beautiful granddaughters and he's wondering when he gets a grandson named after him." Stiles rolled his eyes, setting the phone aside. 

Derek looked ready to pass out so he rolled out of bed to get the bottles going so Derek could feed one or two before Stiles used his awesome baby burrito skills and put them down. Derek deserved a nap. 

"I told you we could name one Janeska it was close." Derek squeezed his eyes tight before blinking them open to clear some of the sleep. 

He hadn't even done any pushing. Labor hadn't been long at all. As soon as he started feeling weird they'd called Fred and when he arrived saying they were contractions they went right to the C-section. 

Though there had been a fair amount of wolfsbane involved to keep him from healing as they got their girls out. 

So yeah, maybe the exhaustion was fair. 

"Klavdiya is prettier." Stiles tutted. Besides they each agreed they name one after their mothers. Not exactly but enough. The third they went back and forth for but Stiles suggested Laura and now they had Laurel. 

John would just have to live with that. 

Bottles and swaddles later their girls were dozing. Though Stiles was sure that wouldn't last. They all were still getting to know each other, and newborns were meant to eat quite often. 

It was going to take a bit to get in the swing of feeding three babies when there was only two of them. So he didn’t expect much sleep until they figured that out, but catch it while they could right? Derek was already passed out and Stiles joined him on the bed. Fred had activated the runes, and they had wolfy senses. If anything happened it would be alright. 

Fred said they should be good to travel in two weeks. In two weeks they would be in Beacon Hills, dziadek would be waiting to take vacation for a couple weeks and do what grandparents did for new parents. There was even a pediatrician in Redford about 45 minutes away from BH that tended to the supernatural. 

Everything just seemed to be falling into place. It was really just the minimum of what Derek deserved but Stiles was going to make sure he got the most. 

**Epilogue**

“I can’t believe you let my father talk you into naming him, Janek.” Stiles sighed as he walked back and forth rocking the swaddled boy. He was absolutely precious, and big. So big. This was really the first time that he’d held a baby that hadn’t been one of his girls and Janek was nine pounds and so long. 

Erica was beaming from her bed in their birthing room. Which had previously been their spare room. Boyd quiet watchful man that he was, had figured out pretty fast that his old sort of friend from highschool wasn’t so human anymore. 

He’d asked that Erica get the bite, and obviously took it too because they were a package deal ever since senior year. 

Now they were welcoming their first pup into the pack that was now about thirteen strong. 

“Well you two weren’t going to and I love John,” Erica stuck out her tongue as she continued to braid her hair out of the way. It was true that John had become very special to everyone in the pack. Especially those who hadn’t exactly had the best family lives. 

Derek may have bit Erica, Isaac and Boyd but John had certainly adopted them, and he certainly had adopted little Janek Vernon Boyd as his first grandson. It was kind of cute to see him having settled into his retirement and fully into grandpa mode. 

He still technically lived at the old house but he was practically here every minute of the day. John was grillmaster extraordinaire, dziadek for their girls- meaning their favorite tuck in story guy, and just… there. Always. For every single person just like he had always been for Stiles. 

If he and Derek hadn’t decided that three kids was quite enough to manage parenting they would have been naming a little boy Janeczek.

“He’s even going to call him dziadek, because I’m sure John will teach him just as much Polish as the girls. Which, where are my little ladies?” Stiles smiled and placed the boy back in Erica’s arms now that she was settled with the boppy. 

“Nat the sneak, stuck her nose in here while you were pushing and got an eyeful and now she’s crying about how the baby crawled out of you like the alien from the movie only it came out of your peepee and not your belly, so she ran weeping to her sisters and now they’re all certain Janek is an alien. 

“Derek is currently talking them down, so once that’s over you can have three happy five year olds crawling all over you and kissing all over your very cute very not alien baby.” They both laughed at that. The girls had been around when Erica was working through the beginning of her contractions and seemed terrified that their Auntie Eri was sick and hurting. 

They were little wolves so something that kept hurting and made you sick for a long time always made them nervous because they never experienced it. That had been a long hour of reassurances as Erica winced and paced and tried to breathe. 

When it came time to push the girls had been kicked out. Though they were curious little beings. They should have realized that one of them would look. 

At least they were getting normal amounts of childhood trauma. 

Boyd interrupted their chatter with a bowl of soup and a smoothie for his wife. Erica hadn’t been able to choke anything down since the very first contraction. She said it made her nauseous and that was about fourteen hours ago. 

Stiles smiled at how sweet it was that Erica had only just gotten clean and settled after labor, not even thinking about food and Boyd was already there with it anyways. 

It made him crave his own mate and children and left the couple to their moment. 

Six years ago he was living in a somewhat rundown loft, alone, working for tips at a cocktail bar not sure where his life was going, not entirely sure he liked it as it was. 

Five years ago he could have been dead. 

He never would have guessed that he would have something this big and full and beautiful. Not even when he was a kid himself, but he wouldn’t trade it for anything. Not any dream that he had ever had as a kid compared to what he had right now. 

It was only going to get better Stiles was sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damn, that was easier to cut up and post than I thought. I feel very accomplished lol. I hope you enjoy it but again this was very much written to satisfy myself and to fill the time when my baby naps and I'm held a silent prisoner so it's okay if you don't. Thanks for making it all the way to the end.


End file.
